Türkiye is working on limiting technology giants despite the risk of clash with America

Türkiye intends to impose new bases aimed at reducing the dominance of major technology companies, inspired by the European Union’s approach to the organization, which could jeopardize the risk of US revenge. The draft law will be submitted to Parliament soon, and will be associated with technological enterprises such as “Apple”, “Google” with “Alphabet”, “Meta” and “Amazon”, elected their own services in search engines, application stores or digital markets, according to senior Turkish officials who spoke to “Bloomberg”. The bill is supported by the ruling party and is prepared in collaboration with the Turkish Competition Authority. If there is no compliance, the businesses involved may face fines of up to 10% of their annual income, according to officials who have asked not to reveal their identity because of the sensitivity of the matter. Tensions between America and the European Union This step comes in light of the increase in tension between the United States and the European Union over regulating the digital technological sector. The European Union adopted the Digital Market Law (DMA) in May 2023, which aims to combat anti competition practices by launching obligations on large digital platforms known as ‘Gate Guards’. The Turkish proposal is in line with the European Union’s approach, which could increase the complexity of Ankara’s commercial relations with Washington. US President Donald Trump has strongly criticized the digital market law of the European Union, describing it as ‘external extortion’ that targets US companies, and threatened to institute the definitions of customs. According to the Turkish proposal, closed systems such as Apple will be forced to enable users to install external sources applications, which means that applications are available to “iPhone” and “iPad” devices from outside the official application store, similar to the Side Download feature available in the “Android” system of “Google”. Additional restrictions will also prohibit the platforms from processing user data without explicit approval, with restrictions on the use of this data for commercial purposes. In addition, large technological enterprises will be required to provide clear information to commercial users, such as applications, advertisers and digital market sellers, on the scope of services, performance and prices. The proposal is still subject to the amendments before being officially approved, and some of the items may change during the legislative process.