Turkey’s Competition Authority publishes reasoning behind temporary injunction against WhatsApp’s new confidentiality agreement
The Competition Authority has launched an ex-officio investigation against social media platform Facebook (Facebook Inc. and Facebook Ireland Ltd.) and the mobile communication application WhatsApp (WhatsApp Inc. and WhatsApp LLC) upon publication of WhatsApp's latest terms and conditions (T&Cs).
According to the T&Cs, users must agree to have their WhatsApp data shared with Facebook as from 8 February 2021 in order to be able to continue using the application. The Authority imposed a temporary injunction on application of these T&Cs in an interim decision dated 11 January 2021 as a part of its ongoing investigation. The Authority published the reasoning behind its decision on 15 February 2021.
Considering that the Authority believes such terms and conditions may have exploitative and exclusionary affects within the context of the Law on the Protection of Competition No. 4054 (“Competition Law”), the Authority resolved in its interim decision dated 11 January 2021 that the application of the new terms and conditions implemented by the WhatsApp’s new confidentiality agreement will be stopped; and all users who accepted or rejected these conditions will be informed until 8 February 2021 that the application of these conditions, which include data sharing with Facebook, has stopped.
The Authority emphasized the following facts in its interim decision:
- WhatsApp has access to the message contents, location, profile picture, group information and other information stored on the users’ devices. This information may contain the data used in other applications installed on the device, and the liability imposed on the users is not fully disclosed.
- Users of Facebook may share information with an entire closed group while WhatsApp users share more private or secret data within smaller groups. Therefore, WhatsApp data is generally more confidential than any other social media content, which people may not want to share with a wider environment.
The Authority listed the following concerns arising from these issues:
- WhatsApp data will be linked to other Facebook company products and data.
- Facebook will be able to use its power in the consumer communication services market in a way that aggravates its competitors in the internet advertising market.
- Excessive data collection and use of data for other services will lead to consumer exploitation.
Facebook may appeal in the Administrative Court of Ankara within 60 days upon receipt of the reasoned decision. Following the interim decision of the Authority, WhatsApp announced that the date given to the users to accept the T&Cs and continue to use the application has been postponed to 15 May 2021 from 8 February 2021.
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