The Competition Board decided to impose an administrative fine on search engine Google at the rate of five per ten thousand of its gross revenues for each day in 2023, on the grounds that it did not fulfill the obligations imposed in line with the “local search services” decision in terms of hotel queries.
In 2021, the Competition Board imposed an administrative fine of 296 million 841 thousand Turkish Liras on Google for giving its search pages an advantage over its competitors in local search and accommodation price comparison services.
In order to remedy this violation and ensure effective competition in the market, the Competition Board imposed certain obligations on Google and proposed measures including new designs in the local search services market.
At its March 21 meeting, the Board stated that it would monitor Google’s compliance with these measures for 3 months. Although Google stated that it had implemented all of the measures, it was found that the new designs were not implemented for hotel inquiries.
At its meeting held on May 9, the Competition Board decided to impose an administrative fine at the rate of five per ten thousand of Google’s gross revenues in 2023 for each day Google failed to fulfill its obligations.
