The Turkish Ministry of Commerce (the "Ministry") has made significant amendments to the Commercial Communications and Commercial Electronic Messages Regulation, which oversees commercial communications and commercial electronic messages reporting requirements.
An amending regulation was published in the Official Gazette on 4 January 2020, mainly concerning 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 for the rejection of communications (if requested) and the administration of the complaints procedure.
The Turkish Union of Chambers and Exchanges (TOBB) has been authorized to set up the IYS. (The platform's website can be found here).
Service providers and their brands will be assigned IYS numbers, which will allow these providers to monitor consents and refusals from recipients. Service providers will be asked to provide customer service numbers, text numbers or URL addresses that will only be used for opt-out purposes in commercial electronic communications. This will allow recipients to exercise their right to reject these addresses.
Under the amendment, all natural persons and legal entities wishing to send commercial electronic communications must register with the IYS. Recipients who do not consent to 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 that relate to the modification, use or maintenance of goods and services provided;
- Commercial electronic communications that include notifications of subscriptions, memberships, partnerships, collections, fee payments, information updates, purchases and deliveries; and
- Commercial electronic communications sent to customers by companies acting as intermediaries in capital markets.
Deadlines
On 30 November 2020, the deadlines for the IYS were extended by the Ministry. According to the Ministry's announcement, service providers that have more than one hundred and fifty thousand (150,000) consents must upload them by 31 December 2020 and by 15 February 2021, recipients must verify their consent status.
Service providers with less than one hundred fifty thousand (150,000) consents must upload them by 31 May 2021 and recipients must check their consent status by 15 July 2021.
If recipients wish to be exempt from these notifications, they must change their IYS consent status. After these dates, service providers can legally send messages to them. However, until then, service providers must verify a recipient's consent status before sending messages. In summary, the regulation requires that consent must be obtained from service providers to send commercial electronic communications to advertise goods and services, promote their business or raise their profile by sending formal communications. With the recently adopted amendment, the IYS platform has become a new system for obtaining these authorizations.
IYS began 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 or Arcan Kemahlı.
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