Personal Data Protection and Privacy Policy

Methods and Procedures for Obtaining Consent for Sending Commercial Electronic Messages

Under Law No. 6563 on the Regulation of Electronic Commerce, it has become mandatory to obtain consent before sending commercial electronic messages to individuals. With the entry into force of the Law and its relevant regulation, service providers will no longer be able to send commercial electronic messages to recipients without their prior consent for the purpose of directly or indirectly promoting and marketing their goods and services.

This consent can be obtained physically with a wet signature or electronically via email or SMS. In accordance with the Regulation, the consent must be made in the form of an explicit declaration of will. The recipient's silence does not mean that this consent has been given. The message sent by the service provider to obtain consent should not contain any promotional and marketing content.

The consent text must include the recipient's affirmative declaration of will, name and surname and electronic contact address that the recipient accepts the sending of commercial electronic messages. The signature of the consenting person must be present in obtaining the consent.

Consent in electronic media can be given verbally, with certain words or by checking a box on the internet system. However, in this last case, it should be ensured that the box is not pre-marked and that the mark is placed by the consenting party.

The burden of proof that approval has been obtained rests with the service provider. In this regard, Article 13 of the regulation stipulates that the service provider and/or intermediary service provider must retain records related to the approval for a period of one year from the date the approval expires and must submit these records to the Ministry upon request.

With regard to proof, if the service provider obtained consent in a physical format, the original document bearing the consenting party’s signature will serve as proof. If consent was obtained electronically—for example, via email—the relevant IP log records may be sufficient as proof. However, for approvals obtained via email, the recipient must be notified directly via email that they have given their consent. In the ‘double-opt-in’ method used for email-based consent, the recipient provides their email address to the service provider electronically, and the service provider then sends an email containing an activation link to that address to verify that the person using the address is the same as the person who provided it to the service provider. If the recipient clicks the link in this email, they are deemed to have consented to receiving commercial communications.

For consents obtained via SMS, the service provider must also retain the consent message sent by the recipient. For consents obtained via voice communication, the recipient must be informed at the start of the call that the conversation will be recorded, and an audio recording of the consent must be obtained and retained after the recipient verifies their personal information.