Turkish Competition Authority (TCA) initiated an investigation ex officio against Facebook Inc., Facebook Ireland Ltd., WhatsApp Inc. and WhatsApp LLC regarding the obligation imposed on WhatsApp users to share data with other Facebook companies.
Recently, WhatsApp notified its users that there will be updates regarding the terms of use and privacy policy. Together with these updates, more data will be collected, processed and used by Facebook. In the briefing; it has been stated that sharing of WhatsApp data with Facebook companies should be approved, otherwise users will not be able to use the WhatsApp application as of 8 February 2021.
On January 11, TCA decided to take interim measures until a final decision is taken, pursuant to the article 9 of the Law coded 4054 since the aforementioned implementations have the potential to cause serious and irreparable damage. According to the interim measures; Facebook has to cease the conditions about the use of WhatsApp user data for other services as of February 8, 2021, and notify all users who accept these conditions or do not accept these conditions by the said date that Facebook has stopped the new conditions including the share of data.
(Turkish Competition Authority- 11.01.2021, 21-02/25-M)
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NAZALI TAX & LEGAL |