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As part of the investigation, a verbal defense meeting was held on the grounds that Google “abused its dominant position in the general search market”. The meeting, which lasted about 3.5 hours and chaired by the president of the competition council, Birol Küle, took place via online videoconference.
DEFENSE ON THE INTERNET
Küle recalled that an investigation has been opened against Google Reklamcılık ve Pazarlama Ltd Şti, Google International LLC, Google LLC, Google Ireland Limited and Alphabet Inc. with the Council’s decision to “abuse its dominant position in the general search market” .
Stating that after the completion of the written defense process, it was decided to hold the verbal defense meeting live on the Internet due to the new type of coronavirus (Covid-19) epidemic and gave the floor to the investigative team.
The representative of the investigative team said it was investigated whether Google algorithm updates and AdWords ads caused competition violations by making businesses difficult.
“MONEY PENALTY MUST APPLY”
Claiming that Google has a dominant position in the general search services market and that “by placing text ads at the top of general search results with an indeterminate and heavily advertised nature, organic results that do not generate ad revenue for them make it difficult for them activities in the content services market, “the representative of the investigative mission told the company. He said administrative fines should be imposed.
The representative noted that, within a reasonable time to be determined by the Council, steps should be taken to present text ads in a scale or position that does not exclude organic results from the market, to remove the ambiguity in the nature of the advertising in a so that it is clearly differentiated from organic results and to eliminate the effects of text ads on the organic ranking of websites.
The Representative of the Investigative Mission, who stated that Google must submit the compliance measures prepared by Google to the Institution no later than 1 month before the period assigned to him and to report periodically to the Agency for a period of 5 years and once every ‘year from the start of the implementation of the first compliance measure, the company meets the above conditions in a timely and comprehensive manner. He reiterated that a daily administrative penalty should be imposed in the event of bankruptcy.
“BIOLOGICAL RESULTS ARE MORE CLICK”
ELIG Gürkaynak law firm represented Google at the verbal defense meeting. Representatives of the company under investigation argued that the substantive basis of the assessments in the investigation report was incorrect and that Google’s practice of text advertising was in line with competition law rules.
In the defense of Google’s 60 pages, “Displaying text ads (AdWords) on Google at the top of the results page is a prerequisite for Google’s search service to be offered for free … Text ads only show up for 16 percent of queries made on Google. This ratio has declined over time … text ad makers are actually declining in real terms, considering inflation in Turkey … Additionally, organic results are clicked more than text ad results.“Statements have been included.
It was noted that it was clearly stated that Google’s text ads were advertisements and that the company’s ad coding was more advanced than other online platforms.
THE DECISION WILL BE ANNOUNCED ON NOVEMBER 19th
Company representatives point out that text ads help visit small to medium-sized websites that generally don’t rank high in free results and believe that Google’s text ads offer promotional opportunities for Turkish websites and that the measures in the survey report could raise advertising prices and harm small websites in the country. He claimed they were.
Claiming that Google’s free results ranking is not affected by whether advertisers buy ads or not, company representatives noted that there is no room for administrative penalties and measures.
It has been said that the Council’s final decision on the investigation will be announced on November 19, following a 60-page presentation and question and answer session, lasting approximately 3.5 hours, by the law firm ELIG Gürkaynak representing Google. If the decision is made earlier, an announcement will be posted on the Competition and Market Authority website.
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