Turkey’s Competition Council has initiated an investigation into Facebook and the company-owned messenger WhatsApp over its new policies
This was stated in a statement issued by the Turkish regulator on Monday.
“The Competition Council has launched its own investigation into Facebook and WhatsApp and suspended the need for them to share user data of the social network and messenger”, – the communiqué stated.
Earlier, WhatsApp updated its user agreement, requiring everyone who uses the messenger to share data with Facebook. In particular, Facebook will receive information on users’ phone numbers, transactions and IP addresses.
The decision has been met with serious criticism in Turkey, with #WhatsAppSiliyoruz (#DeleteWhatsap) remaining one of the most popular hashtags in the Turkish Twitter segment for the last few days. Many employees of Turkish government agencies have started to set up accounts on Telegram and BIP, the messenger owned by Turkey’s leading telecommunications company Turkcell.