New E-commerce Law in Turkey

The Turkish Parliament has accepted The Law on Regulations of Electronic Commerce on October 23, 2014 and the law has been published at the Turkish Official Gazette on November 5, 2014.

As major increase of the online purchases and sales made on the Internet in Turkey has been recorded, it is explicable the main purpose of this new law to be implemented into the regulations of the e-commerce communication, the liabilities of the service and platform providers, the execution of the contracts via electronic communication devices, the information liabilities for e-commerce transaction and the relevant sanctions.

With clear purpose of the regulations, the law brings to the attention of all interested the following key points:

The service provider has certain information liabilities before the contracts are executed via electronic communication devices and the orders made via electronic communication devices are subject to some specific criteria.

The discounts, gifts or any other promotions and the contests and games, created with promotional purpose, the participation conditions and the related benefits have to be clearly determinable, easily reachable and unambiguous.

E-commerce messages can be sent to a consumer electronically, only after the consumer has given approval for this, which approval has to be given in writing or via any electronic communication devices. E-commerce messages can be sent to businesses without requirement for prior approval. These messages shall contain the following: the entity of the service provider; service provider’s phone number, fax number, sms number, email; subject and purpose of the e-commerce message and if the message is sent on the behalf of another person/entity information on real sender.

The consumer has the right to reject the electronic message without the requirement to give any specific reason for this and the service provider must give the consumer easy and free-of-charge opportunity to do so. Within three days after the consumer’s rejection request the service provider must stop the sending of any messages.

The platform provider is not accountable to check the contents provided at the electronic platform or to investigate if any activity related to the content or goods/services of the content is contrary to law.

The service providers and platform providers are responsible for the protection of the personal data and cannot provide any of this information to third parties without the permission of the person who owns the specific data.

The new E-commerce Law will enter into force on May 1, 2015. This law carries the previous key points, which need to be taken under consideration from real persons and legal entities in e-commerce business.