Google defends its market practices in Turkish antitrust investigation

By Erhan Cihan Unal

ANKARA (AA) – The Turkish Competition Board held a hearing on Tuesday as part of its investigation into Google’s market practices, examining potential abuse of its dominant position in the general search services market.

The hearing was chaired by Competition Board President Birol Kule at the board's headquarters in the capital Ankara.

The investigation involves Alphabet Inc, Google LLC, Google International LLC, Google Ireland Limited, and Google's advertising and marketing limited company in Türkiye, collectively known as the Google economic entity.

The investigation aims to determine if Google violated the Competition Protection Act by leveraging specific features on its search engine results pages to abuse its market dominance.

The inquiry team presented their findings, indicating that while Google holds a dominant position, there is no evidence of abuse, ruling out the need for an administrative fine.

Complainants argued that Google manipulates search results to favor its goals, hindering consumers from accessing other content providers.

Representing Google, Attorney Korhan Yildirim defended the company, saying the search results are “organic” and based on relevance, benefiting consumers.

The board will announce its final decision on July 10. If the decision is reached earlier, it will be published on the authority’s official website.