Turkey Fines Meta $10.4 Million for Abusing Market Dominance

Turkey’s Competition Council has taken a decisive step against US tech giant Meta, slapping it with a fine of 335.7 million Turkish liras, equivalent to over $10.4 million, in response to Meta’s decision to terminate its Threads service in Turkey.

The Competition Council had previously imposed a daily fine of 4.8 million liras, roughly $148,000, on Meta in March for allegedly abusing its dominant market position. The investigation focused on Meta’s policy requiring users to have an Instagram account to access the Threads app, with the added condition that deleting Threads necessitated deleting their Instagram account as well.

In a statement, the regulator expressed concerns that Meta’s data policies, which allowed for the transfer of information between Instagram and Threads accounts, could potentially stifle competition in the sector. The council deemed such practices detrimental to the healthy development of a competitive marketplace, prompting the imposition of the fines and the directive for Meta to comply with Turkish law.

Related: Turkey Imposes Interim Measures on Meta Platforms

In response to the regulatory pressure, Meta announced the temporary suspension of its Threads service in Turkey, effective April 29th. Turkish users will have their profiles deactivated, though they will retain the option to download their data and delete their profiles at any time.

Source: Report AZ