Before a foreign company runs its first campaign to customers in Türkiye, it meets two Turkish terms: ticari elektronik ileti (commercial electronic message) and İYS, the consent register.
This is a checklist, not legal advice. Confirm your obligations with your legal adviser.
What counts as a commercial electronic message
According to KPMG Türkiye’s summary, the Regulation on Commercial Communication and Commercial Electronic Messages defines them as data, voice and image messages sent electronically for commercial purposes through phone, call centres, fax, auto-dialers, smart voice recorders, e-mail, SMS and similar means.
What İYS is
İYS (İleti Yönetim Sistemi) was set up by the Union of Chambers and Commodity Exchanges of Türkiye. It records consents and refusals, lets recipients check consents and opt out, and handles complaints. An amendment published in the Official Gazette on 4 January 2020 (issue 30998) made registration with İYS mandatory for anyone sending commercial electronic messages.
The three-business-day rules
From KPMG’s summary:
- Consent collected elsewhere must be recorded in İYS within three business days, or it is invalid; the sender carries the burden of proof.
- Refusals: check İYS for refusals, record refusals you receive another way, and stop sending to that recipient within three business days.
- Merchants and tradespeople need no consent, but their addresses must be recorded in İYS.
And WhatsApp?
The sources here do not say whether WhatsApp campaigns fall under İYS. WhatsApp’s own rule is clear, though: Meta asks businesses to message only people who agreed to hear from them, and outside the 24-hour window only approved templates can be sent.
What MonoChat does today
MonoChat does not register consents in İYS. It does this:
- Records consent. The Opt-in step in flows asks the customer and saves the Yes or No on their profile.
- Sends only to those who agreed. Limit bulk-message recipients to customers whose Opt-in is Yes.
- Tracks every send. Schedule bulk messages, see sent, delivered and read per recipient, and stop a running send.
Checklist
- Are we registered with İYS as a sender?
- Do we have this recipient’s consent, recorded in İYS?
- Did we check İYS for refusals before sending?
- Does the message tell recipients how to opt out?
- Can we stop within three business days of a refusal?
- On WhatsApp, did the recipient opt in, and is our template approved?