Türkiye fines Google over providing unfair advantage to competitors

The Turkish Competition Board has fined Google for allowing an unfair advantage in competing local search and accommodation price comparison services, disregarding obligations regarding its services in the country.

"Starting from April 15, Google will be subject to an administrative fine of five ten thousandths of its 2023 revenues for each day until it fulfils its obligations," the competition authority said on Thursday.

According to a statement released on the authority's website, Google was found to have provided its local search and accommodation price comparison services with an unfair advantage over competitors, following an investigation conducted three years ago.

In 2021, Google was fined $36.6 million (296 million Turkish liras) for violating the country's competition law by complicating organic search results in the content services market by prominently placing text ads at the top of its general search results, excluding its competitors.

The investigation revealed that Google's services enjoyed preferential treatment in terms of location and visibility on the general search results page.

Preferential treatment in terms of visibility

Among the obligations Türkiye imposed on Google was the requirement to ensure that competing local search and accommodation price comparison services were not unfairly advantaged in search results.

The board decided to adopt the precautionary suggestions put forth by Google and to oversee their implementation for a duration of three months after the meeting on March 21.

However, it was found that Google failed to meet the required obligations concerning "local search services" pertaining to hotel inquiries as of April 15.

Consequently, the board determined that Google did not fulfil these responsibilities.