Type “running shoes”, “best laptop” or “camping equipment” into Google from almost anywhere in the world and at the top of the screen a carousel of ads from sites that promote products for browsing and comparison will appear. Not, however, in Turkey.
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Google deleted these ads last year after Turkish antitrust officials ordered the company to facilitate competitive shopping sites to appear more prominently in the ads.
The Turkish demands moved further to crush Google's shopping service. But that wasn't the only thing. In April, the country's officials made another bold move, saying that the company's lucrative search function for finding local destinations such as the “nearby pharmacy» violated antitrust laws, a first-of-its-kind decision that put the future of this service into question.
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The tension between Turkey and Google reflects how hostility toward Silicon Valley giants is growing even in places like Turkey, which has little history of antitrust enforcement against the industry. The efforts threaten to overturn the conditions — an open global internet and lax government regulation — that have helped these companies thrive over the past two decades. In their place could be a checkerboard of laws and regulations, where the products and services available depend on where a person is connected.
Some attribute Google’s troubles in Turkey in part to President Recep Tayyip Erdogan ’s increasingly authoritarian leadership and his efforts to wrest power from Western companies. But the pushback in Turkey and elsewhere is also being fueled by Google rivals such as Yelp. Those competitors have spent years pushing regulators around the world to be tougher than those in the United States and Europe.
«The forces from around the world believe that something must be done», said Harry First, law professor at New York University.
In the past, countries focused on domestic industries because they lacked the resources or knowledge to take antitrust action against large international companies, said William E. Kovacic, former chairman of the Federal Trade Commission. However, as more countries take action against Big Tech, he said, a “common intellectual infrastructure» facilitates the prosecution of a case. In Turkey, authorities relied on the findings of the European Commission.
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The number of countries with antitrust laws has exceeded 130, up from 30 in 1990, said Mr. Kovacic.
«The Turkish tactic will be significant», said. «There will be other similar countries that say,« Why not us?»
Google, which successfully blocked certain antitrust investigations by Turkish regulatory authorities regarding online advertising and search ranking, said it had removed services such as shopping ads when the changes demanded by the authorities would make them less beneficial for users.
«We work constructively with regulatory authorities worldwide and have managed to find solutions based on facts and evidence to address similar concerns, without dismantling features that people and businesses find useful», said Miguel Perez Guerra, senior competition counsel for Google. statement.
Google’s opponents went to Turkish regulators in 2018 after the European Union fined Google 2.42 billion euros for favoring its online shopping service over rivals in search results. The fine was a record, but Google’s opponents were angry that regulators did n’t force the company to change its practices more. Google was still giving preferential treatment to its shopping service, they said, reducing web traffic and visibility for their sites.
The Turkish enforcement is part of a broader push «making competition the norm in markets dominated by the big tech»», the organization said in its announcement. «Our decisions are related to the efforts we observe in the rest of the world»». The antitrust organization is also investigating Facebook's data sharing practices.
Source of information: nytimes.com
