Turkiye imposes daily fine of US$160,000 on Meta

ANKARA: The Turkish Competition Authority has decided to impose daily fines of over US$160,000 (RM742,800) on Meta over failure to comply with an obligation to exchange data in relation to users of WhatsApp messenger, Sputnik quoted Turkish broadcaster TRT Haber report on Wednesday.

The authority, as part of an investigation launched into the obligation to exchange data imposed on WhatsApp users by the software update, had issued an interim injunction ordering Meta to stop using WhatsApp users’ data in other Meta services in Turkiye and to notify all users of this, the report said, adding that the authority had asked the company to propose a new solution to address its concerns by Dec 11, 2023, but a solution was not provided to date.

Consequently, the authorities have decided to impose a fine of 4,796,152 liras (over US$160,000) on the company’s gross revenues in 2022 for each day from Dec 12, 2023, until a final compliance solution is submitted, the report said.

To date, the fine has exceeded 140 million liras (over US$4.6 million) and will continue to increase daily, the broadcaster reported.

In early December 2023, the authority launched an investigation into Meta after the company decided to merge users’ accounts on Instagram (owned by Meta) and Threads, which found that the company’s actions violated Turkiye’s law on the protection of competition.–Bernama-Sputnik