Competition Authority Ends Investigation into Meta Platforms Following Acceptance of Commitments

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Competition Authority Ends Investigation into Meta Platforms Following Acceptance of Commitments

The Competition Authority has concluded its investigation into Meta Platforms (NASDAQ:META), Inc. following the acceptance of commitments presented by the company.

The announcement stated: "At the meeting of the Competition Authority on 23.11.2023, it was decided to initiate an investigation against Meta Platforms, Inc. (Meta) under Article 6 of Law No. 4054 on the Protection of Competition due to the allegation that Meta linked its Threads application to the Instagram application and merged certain data between the Threads and Instagram applications, with the decision number 23-54/1031-M.

Upon examination of Meta’s data merging policies, it was understood that data collected from Instagram accounts could be transferred to Threads accounts, and data collected through Threads could be used to provide, personalize, and enhance other Meta products, to measure and analyze the performance of Meta products, as well as to offer other corporate services (including advertisements). Moreover, despite the obligations outlined in the Board's decision dated 20.10.2022 and numbered 22-48/706-299, Meta's behavior of continuing to merge user data obtained from the Instagram and Threads applications was deemed a serious finding indicating a violation of Article 6 of Law No. 4054.

In light of this evaluation, at the meeting of the Board on 08.02.2024, in order to prevent irreparable damages until a final decision is made, a temporary injunction was issued under the fourth paragraph of Article 9 of Law No. 4054, prohibiting the merging of data obtained through the Threads application with data obtained from the Instagram application, with the decision number 24-07/125-50.

In the subsequent process, META presented solution proposals regarding the temporary injunction decision to the Authority. However, the proposals presented by META were found inadequate to alleviate the competition concerns that had arisen and were rejected by the Board. Additionally, due to non-compliance with the obligations imposed by the temporary injunction, META was subject to an administrative fine of 335 million TL. Instead of presenting a new solution proposal to address the emerging concerns, META announced to its users that it would suspend Threads' operations in Turkey as of April 29, 2024.

Furthermore, the commitment process initiated regarding the investigation continued, and on 30.10.2024, META submitted a commitment text to the Authority to eliminate concerns regarding data merging behavior related to the subject of the investigation.

In the commitment text submitted by META, it was stated that starting from the date the Threads application would be re-launched in Turkey, both existing users whose accounts are currently suspended and new users could use Threads simply by opening a Threads profile without needing an Instagram account, and that the data obtained through Threads would not be merged with Instagram unless these users preferred to merge their accounts.

At the Board meeting on 23.11.2024, it was decided to accept the commitments submitted by Meta, as they were capable of addressing the competition issues identified in the file, were implementable in a short time, and could be effectively executed. This led to the conclusion of the ongoing investigation by making the commitments binding for Meta, with the decision number 24-45/1053-450."