NEWSLETTER-2021

404 NEWSLETTER 2021 The Amendment Act designates a simplified procedure to serve administrative fines upon foreign addresses. Accordingly, an email notification, or other communication tools shall be deemed as notification served within the scope of Notification Act numbered 7201. The notification is deemed to be served after 5 days from the date of the notification. If the foreign social network provider fulfills its obligation by designating a representative in Turkey, only one fourth of the imposed administrative fines shall be imposed, the advertisement ban shall be removed, and the resolutions of the judge shall be deemed ipso facto void. VKontakte, YouTube, Dailymotion, and TikTok have already appointed or have decided to appoint a representative in Turkey. Advertisement ban for those social network providers that did not determine a representative entered into force on 19 January 2021. Just before the advertisement ban became effective, Facebook, Instagram, and LinkedIn announced that they will also designate a representative in Turkey. On the other hand, pursuant to the decisions of the ICTA, published in the Official Gazette dated 19 January 2021 and numbered 31369, placing advertisements and making money transfers by real and legal persons, who are resident taxpayers in Turkey, to Twitter, Pinterest, and Periscope is banned, since they failed to fulfill the obligation to appoint a representative. On-soil Storage of Data Another obligation regulated for the social network providers is to store the data of their users in Turkey, in a datacenter physically located within Turkish borders. Accordingly, local and foreign social network providers with a daily access of more than one million users shall take necessary measures for storing the data of their users in Turkey in a datacenter physically located within Turkish borders. Contrary to the obligation on appointment of a representative mentioned above, no specific sanction is designated for the omission of this obligation. This obligation of on-soil storage of user data is a potential burden on the social network provider and will take longer to fulfill. Currently,

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