The Turkish Competition Authority on Monday said that it had imposed an interim measure on Meta over the company’s use of data sharing between its social media platforms Instagram and Threads.

The regulator launched an investigation into Meta in December "on suspicion of abusing its dominant position by connecting Threads and Instagram applications."

At the time, the authority said that "it was evaluated that Meta's combination of user data from users who created Threads profiles based on their Instagram accounts, without providing users with a confirmation option, would cause irreparable harm,"

It said that Meta "created an entry barrier in the market... and this increased the company's market power," via its practices which hindered competitors' access to advertisers and financial resources.

The regulator in December began issuing the company with daily fines of 4.8 million liras ($148,000) as part of a separate investigation into its data collection and sharing practices. It said that the notification given to users about sharing data between Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp did not provide sufficient information and was not sufficiently transparent.

This notification, it added, was designed to steer users towards data sharing.

In comments to Reuters, a spokesperson for Meta said that the company is considering the decision and would speak further on the subject “in due course”.

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