The Turkish Ministry of Commerce (the "Ministry") has made substantial amendments to the Regulation on Commercial Communications and Commercial Electronic Messages, which monitors commercial communications and the reporting requirements for commercial electronic messages.
An amending regulation was published in the Official Gazette on 4 January 2020, which mainly concerns the commercial electronic communications management system (tr. İleti Yönetim Sistemi or "IYS").
What is the IYS?
The main purpose of the IYS is to facilitate the authorization to receive commercial electronic communications by creating a newly established platform. This platform will allow the rejection of communications (if desired) and the management of the complaint procedure.
The Turkish Union of Chambers and Exchange Bodies (TOBB) has been authorized to set up the IYS. (The website of the platform can be found here).
IYS numbers are assigned to service providers and their trademarks, which these providers use to monitor the consents and refusals of recipients. Service providers will be required to provide customer service numbers, text numbers or URL addresses, which will only be used for rejection purposes in commercial electronic communications. This allows the recipient to exercise the right to reject these addresses.
Under the amended law, all natural and legal persons who wish to send commercial electronic communications must register with the IYS. Recipients who do not authorize the IYS will not receive commercial electronic communications.
There are some exceptions to the consent requirement. In particular, communications do not require consent in the following circumstances:
- Commercial electronic communications relating to the modification, use or maintenance of goods and services provided;
- Commercial electronic communications that include notices of subscriptions, membership, partnerships, collections, payment of fees, information updates, purchases and deliveries; and
- Commercial electronic communications sent to customers by companies acting as intermediaries in capital markets.
Deadlines
On 28 August 2020, the deadlines for the IYS were extended by the second amending Regulation. According to the second amending regulation, authorizations obtained before the amending regulation entered into force should be transferred from service providers to the IYS by 1 December 2020.
By 16 January 2021, recipients must check their authorization status. If they want to be exempted from these notifications, they must change their IYS authorization status. After this date, service providers will be able to legally send messages to them. However, until then, service providers must check the consent status of a recipient before sending messages. In summary, the Regulation requires that the consent of service providers must be obtained in order to send commercial electronic communications to promote goods and services, to promote their business or to increase their visibility by sending formal communications. With the recently adopted amendment, the IYS platform has become a new system for obtaining these authorisations.
IYS started operations on 1 September 2020.
Service providers must comply with the amendment and register with IYS if they wish to send commercial electronic messages.
For more information about this Amendment and the IYS system, please contact your regular CMS source or our local CMS expert Dr. Döne Yalçın.
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