Turkey's competition authority fines Google 296 million liras

Turkey's competition authority has said that it fined Google 296 million liras for violating the country's competition law.

Wednesday April 14 2021 05:09 pm

Duvar English

Turkish authorities on April 14 fined Google 296 million Turkish liras ($36.6 million) for violating the country's competition law.

Turkey’s Competition Authority said Google violated the 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 included Turkish Google Reklamcılık ve Pazarlama Ltd., Google International LLC, Google LLC, Google Ireland Ltd., and Alphabet – Google’s parent company – it added.

In 2019, the European Commission also slapped a $1.69 billion fine on Google for breaking the EU’s anti-trust rules on online advertising.

This is not the first time that the Turkish authorities imposed fines on Google. In November last year, the tech giant was fined 196.7 million liras for "abusing its dominant market position."

In February last year, the authority fined Google 98.3 million liras for violating the terms of fair competition due to unfair access to advertisement space following a 2019 investigation into claims that Google uses abusive tactics to quash its rivals.