AFP, Published on Monday 11 January 2021 at 13:36

The competition authority in Turkey announced on Monday to launch an investigation against WhatsApp and Facebook following the decision of the social network, a messaging app to share more data with its parent company.

WhatsApp has come under fire after asking its nearly two billion users to agree to the new terms of service, allowing it to share more data with Facebook.

Rejecting users will no longer have access to their account from 8 February.

The Competition Authority in Turkey said in a statement that it had opened an investigation against Facebook and WhatsApp regarding the practice, and called for its findings to be pending “suspension”.

Criticizing the WhatsApp decision, Turkish authorities have in recent times urged citizens to prioritize the use of BEP, a local messaging application developed by mobile operator Turkcell.

BEP said on Sunday that two million new users downloaded its app within 48 hours.

Several Turkish institutions, including the President of the Republic and the Ministry of Defense, have also announced migration of their WhatsApp groups to BEP, used to communicate with journalists.

The Facebook group wants to monetize its platform by allowing its customers to contact their customers via WhatsApp or even to sell their products directly, as it already has in India.

According to the company, data that can be shared between WhatsApp and Facebook’s application ecosystem (including Instagram and Messenger) includes contact and profile information, with the exception of message content that remains encrypted.

But the new terms differ between the European Union and the rest of the world.

In the case of the EU and the UK, they will only be used to expand the functionality offered by WhatsApp business accounts, the company told AFP.

Facebook has been like many other “gaffes” (Google, Apple, Amazon, Microsoft) in sightseeing by European and American officials, accusing these groups of the new millennium for practices perceived as anti-competitive .