Author: Mert Karamustafaoglu
Introduction
“Harese” is an interesting Arabic word. There is a thorn that camels love very much in the desert. The camel eats the thorn with great greed. So much so that, its mouth bleeds as it eats, but it doesn't stop eating. The taste of the thorn is mixed with the salty taste of its own blood. This mixed taste drives the camel to distraction. The more it bleeds, the more it eats. In the end, the camel dies from the loss of blood. It is said that the word for this thorn, “harese,” is where the Arabic word for "Greed" stems from.
Greed also appears in the story of the creation of the rings of power in J.R.R. Tolkien's legendary work, The Lord of the Rings. Just like the taste of his own blood that consumes the camel, greed is the main element of Sauron's plan to enslave the people of Middle-earth. Sauron, who easily obtains the people of Middle-earth with the rings of power, actually destroys them by using their greed. There is only one ring that controls them all and it has one lord, Sauron. Like the fire of Mount Doom from which it was made, that single ring burns its lord with the greed.
The last three years of our lives were passed under the influence of a pandemic. In this process, we have lost a lot of things that we were used to and that we loved. But we have also gained new habits. Every change has brought us something new. The e-commerce area, which has been expected to develop for years, has grown greedily. Turkey has also had its share of this growth. A significant portion of the six unicorn companies that have emerged in Turkey in recent years are e-commerce companies.
This rapid development called for radical amendments to Law No. 6563 on the Regulation of Electronic Commerce ("E-commerce Law") adopted in 2014. These long-awaited amendments finally came with the Law Numbered 7416 Regarding the Amendment to the Law on Regulation of Electronic Commerce ("Amendment"). This Amendment, which is revolutionary in every respect, is actually a salute to competition law practices that have been ongoing for a while in the field of e-commerce.
The E-Marketplace Platforms Sector Inquiry
The Turkish Competition Authority (“The Competition Authority”) turned its attention to e-commerce developments during the COVID-19 period. The most important of these was the E-Marketplace Platforms Sector Inquiry. A comprehensive report ("Report") was published in this inquiry.
The Report was a frame breaking inquiry of the subject. In particular, data collection activities of platforms such as e-marketplaces, the important role they play for access to market and hence their market power were a harbinger of a change for the future. Above all, the radical recommendations and conclusions of the Report, which call for serious regulatory amendments, were noteworthy. Importantly, the Report stated that the problems could not be solved only by competition rules and suggested that new regulations should also be made.
The report expressed some competitive concerns. For instance, the risk of discrimination among sellers and arbitrary practices regarding product and seller ranking on platforms were among the most significant of these. In particular, the data collected by platforms and the concerns that this causes was perhaps among the most important findings of the Report. The finding that some practices of e-marketplaces based on market power were deemed to be unfair commercial practices and that this has a negative impact on intra-platform competition was also remarkable. The most notable of these was undoubtedly the data-driven competition law concerns, which began with the German Federal Cartel Office's Facebook case and continued with the European Union Commission's investigations into Apple and Amazon. In the Report, the Competition Authority also made very clear findings on this new type of data-driven competition violations.
