Unfair Competition in Virtual World

Competition – Unfair Competition and Competition Law

Competition is a race that allows free economic decisions to be made between enterprises in the

goods and services markets. Decisiveness is the principle of competition between enterprises in the

goods and services markets. Thanks to competition, companies

become more efficient and focus on innovation. Therefore, consumers benefit from a newer service

of higher quality at a lower price. Unfair competition is a state in which this race takes place with

deceptive and untruthful veya dishonest behavior.

The purpose of Competition Law is to prevent agreements, decisions and practices that prevent,

distort or restrict competition in these goods and services markets, and to prevent the abuse of

this dominance by the undertakings that dominate the market, and to ensure the protection of

competition by making the necessary regulations and inspections.

 UNFAIR COMPETITION IN E-COMMERCE

A.      ENGAGING IN UNFAIR COMPETITION BY SENDING SPAM ELECTRONIC MAIL (SPAMMING): Spam

is e-mails that are sent to the electronic mail account without the consent of the person. Advertising,

promotion, etc. marketing methods that come through spam create unfair competition. Both the

consumer and the competitors gain the right to compensation.

B.      UNFAIR COMPETITION SITUATIONS RELATED TO INTERNET DOMAIN NAMES (DOMAIN NAME):

The domain name is the address and name of the website on the Internet. Conducting business

activities with the address and name of competitors undoubtedly leads to unfair competition.

C.      UNFAIR COMPETITION USING THE META TAG (META ATTACHMENT – ROUTER CODE):

Metatags are information attachments of websites. Redirecting the brand, trade name or business

name of its competitors to its own or someone else's website causes unfair competition.

D.      UNFAIR COMPETITION THROUGH HYPERLINK (LINK – RELATIONSHIP) AND FRAMING

(FRAMING): Framing is allowing pages belonging to multiple websites to be viewed in the form of

different sections on a web page.  Merchants may provide links to sites for promotional and

marketing purposes, linking in violation of the honesty rule leads to unfair competition.

E.       UNFAIR COMPETITION THROUGH THE USE OF WEBSITE DESIGN AND VISUALS: Nowadays,

almost all businesses have a website. The elements that make up the website may have the nature of

works, the use of these works by a third party constitutes unfair competition.

F.       UNFAIR COMPETITION THROUGH ADVERTISING BANDS (BANNERS) AND POP-UP ADS: These

are the images that are prepared for advertising and promotional purposes and attached to the

website. If these images confuse or compare the advertised service or product with a third business,

it causes unfair competition.

Competition law occupies an important place in the virtual world in order to prevent all these unfair

competition practices and to ensure that e-commerce continues to develop rapidly.