Data competition among technology giants around the world continues to increase, country by country, on all screens and with different applications. What is more, the dependence on the digital world during the pandemic period has changed the shape of this competition.

The tech companies that own social media and sharing network applications such as TikTok, YouTube, Facebook, Whatsapp and Instagram, which consumers use as "free of cost," turn consumer data into cash minute by minute with personalized ads.

According to the study published by BroadbandSearch, people spend an average of 153 minutes every day on social media and social networks. There is fierce competition for data on every screen at every minute. In this competition, China stands against the U.S. with its long-term human investment, technology companies and a huge market. In the past, a global company had to be active in the U.S. market. Now, it is not possible to talk about a global market without China. Therefore, American companies cannot give up on China, nor can Chinese companies give up on the U.S. market.

Most critical data on mobile

According to the data published by media firm We Are Social, there are 3.5 billion social media users all over the world. Moreover, 5.19 billion people are mobile phone users. The most intense platform for data competition is the smartphone screen because most personal data is collected from smartphones. So, the competition on the smartphone screen is much intenser.

The content on the sharing networks is being created by individuals, local communities, local media organizations and institutions. Global or local brands also invest in targeted marketing with personalized advertisements in front of the screen. Although social media and social networking applications constitute an important part of this competition, there are giants of the internet world working as massive data stores, such as e-commerce, marketplace applications and search engines.

Turkey: Big data market

Turkey is a very valuable market for giant technology companies engaged in data wars. It is a market in terms of high interaction as well as the number of users.

Moreover, it has been serving as an environment where local competition is not very strong and where there was no control over data policies until four or five years ago. Turkey is a market that many global platforms use as a pilot to experiment with new applications.

Are we late in data wars?

According to We Are Social's data, millions of social media users spend about 2.5 hours every day on the major platforms.

Starting from the smartphone, a fierce race continues on televisions, tablets, desktops and laptops. Awareness of data in Turkey is not only in social media applications but also in many domestic technology startups from e-commerce to financial technology, from health to games, in the hands of foreign investors.

Turkey is late in developing and implementing strategies in this area. Now, while starting the tracking of personal data, it has to determine the rules of the game according to international examples without negatively affecting the lives of users. To have a strong place in the global data war, it must raise more funds for technology startups during the growth phase.

China vs. U.S.

To gain insight into data wars, it is useful to take a closer look at what happened to the TikTok video-sharing application owned by Chinese parent company ByteDance. ByteDance announced that it has reached a principal agreement with Oracle and Walmart in the U.S. and that the three parties will quickly cooperate in accordance with the laws of China and the U.S.

A statement said this memorandum was presented to the U.S. administration as a proposal, and TikTok said it believed the tripartite compromise would solve the problems related to the company's future operations and development in the U.S.

U.S. President Trump said on the same day that TikTok had accepted "in principle" the plan to cooperate with Oracle and Walmart. ByteDance recently made a statement to the Beijing Municipal Commercial Bureau saying that it applied for a license under the Regulation on the Management of Technology Import and Export of the People's Republic of China and the Export Banned and Restricted Technologies Catalog. The outcome of this coercive process has yet to be determined, but the U.S.' unregulated economic tyranny and brutal means for personal gain are allegedly a form of "modern piracy." There is still much uncertainty about how TikTok will develop in the future. With the pandemic, the direction of the trade fight started to shift toward data warfare.