Istanbul (AFP)

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

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

Users who decline will no longer be able to access their account from February 8.

The Competition Authority in Turkey said in a statement that it had opened an investigation against Facebook and WhatsApp about this practice, and called for its "suspension" pending its findings.

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

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

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

The Facebook group is seeking to monetize its platform by allowing advertisers to contact their customers via WhatsApp, or even sell their products directly there, as is already the case in India.

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

But the new conditions 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 to WhatsApp Business accounts, the company told AFP.

Facebook has been for months, like the other "Gafam" (Google, Apple, Amazon, Microsoft), in the sights of the European and American authorities who accuse these conglomerates of the new millennium for practices deemed anti-competitive.

© 2021 AFP