Google was initially fined Tl296m by the RK and given specific obligations to rectify the situation. Credit: Andrey_Popov / Shutterstock.

The Turkish Competition Board, Rekabet Kurumu (RK), has imposed a fine of Tl482m ($14.85m) on Google for not complying with measures related to hotel search inquiries.

The fine addresses Google’s failure to implement required measures concerning hotel search inquiries, which had been previously mandated to prevent anti-competitive practices.

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On 8 April 2021, Google was found to have a dominant position in the general search services market and to have violated Article 6 of Act no 4054.

The company was accused of favouring its own services such as Local Unit and Google Hotel Ads (GHA) over its competitors on its search results pages. This was said to have obstructed the operations of rival local search and accommodation price comparison services.

As a result, Google was initially fined Tl296m and given specific obligations to rectify the situation.

These obligations were aimed at ensuring that competing services would not be disadvantaged on Google’s search results page.

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Google proposed new designs for its local search services to address the Turkish competition watchdog’s concerns. These measures were accepted by the board on 21 March 2024, with a three-month monitoring period set to ensure compliance.

However, Google did not implement the new designs for hotel inquiries as required, leading the Board to impose daily fines until the measures were in place.

On 21 May 2024, the Board confirmed that Google had finally implemented the necessary designs for hotel search services and terminated the daily fines.

Nevertheless, the accumulated fine for the period of non-compliance amounted to around Tl482m.

In 2021, Google France was fined $1.34m over misleading star ratings on hotels on its platform.