Since 1 January 2023, Turkish marketplaces have had a statutory notice-and-takedown procedure for listings that infringe a registered trademark, and the main platforms remove a listing within 48 hours of a complete notice. Trendyol, Hepsiburada, Amazon.com.tr and Meta also run their own rights-owner programmes on top of it. This guide covers where to look, how a notice works on each platform, what to prepare, and what can lawfully be done about a seller who comes back under a new name.

Where to look

Trendyol, Hepsiburada, n11, Amazon.com.tr, Çiçeksepeti, Dolap and Sahibinden, plus Instagram, TikTok, Facebook Marketplace and Telegram resellers.

Trendyol is the largest Turkish marketplace, and Dolap, its second-hand app, is where “pre-owned” copies of bags and sneakers appear. Sahibinden is a classifieds site with a large resale section. Instagram and TikTok are where resort-town shops and wholesale-district sellers advertise, usually with a WhatsApp or Telegram number in the bio and no listing to take down. We search all of them weekly, by mark, by model name and by the Turkish misspellings sellers use to avoid filters.

How notices work on each platform

The legal framework. The procedure comes from the Law on the Regulation of Electronic Commerce No. 6563, as amended by Law No. 7416 in 2022. The detail is in the Regulation on E-Commerce Intermediary and E-Commerce Service Providers (Official Gazette, 29 December 2022; in force 1 January 2023), Arts. 12 to 14. In outline:

  • The right holder files a complaint with the marketplace through its internal complaint system, through a notary or by registered electronic mail (KEP).
  • The complaint contains the TÜRKPATENT registration certificate (or other proof of the right), the complainant’s identity and contact details, the grounds and evidence of infringement, and the URL of the listing.
  • The marketplace removes the listing within 48 hours of a complete complaint and notifies both the seller and the complainant.
  • The seller may object with documents showing that the goods do not infringe (for example invoices from an authorised distributor). If the objection is well founded, the listing is restored within 24 hours. A repeat complaint about the same listing without new evidence is not processed.

In May 2023 the Council of State suspended the enforcement of several provisions of the Regulation, including Arts. 12 to 14, while annulment proceedings continue. The duty in the Law itself to remove infringing content remains, and the platforms have kept their 48-hour practice (Gün + Partners, April 2025). Separately, hosting providers must remove unlawful content once notified under Law No. 5651 (Art. 5). The IP courts can also order access to an infringing site or page blocked in Türkiye as a preliminary injunction under Art. 159 of the Industrial Property Code. That court route is the one for standalone websites and for platforms that do not respond.

Trendyol. Complaints go through the brand’s rights-owner channel (a brand account with the registration certificate and power of attorney on file) or the general IP complaint form. Trendyol’s own rules prohibit sellers from using other brands’ marks, images, designs or patents without authorisation. A store in breach is suspended and told why, and reopened once the problem is fixed. After more than three suspensions for the same problem it is closed permanently (KP Law in WTR, 2023). A complete notice is usually actioned within 48 hours. Test purchases from the same seller strengthen a request to close the whole store. Dolap uses the same complaint route.

Hepsiburada and n11. Both accept IP complaints by e-mail or form supported by the certificate and power of attorney, and both operate seller suspension policies similar to Trendyol’s. Expect to be asked for proof of ownership on the first complaint and for a reference number thereafter.

Amazon.com.tr. Brand Registry requires a registered (not pending) mark, and Türkiye is among the accepted registries. Once enrolled, the Report a Violation tool handles listings, and the Transparency and Project Zero programmes are available on the Turkish store as elsewhere.

Instagram and Facebook. Meta’s IP reporting forms for trademark and counterfeit cover posts, ads, accounts and Marketplace listings, and Meta states that complete reports are generally actioned within a day. Brand Rights Protection, Meta’s search-and-report tool, is open to brands with registered marks. It lets you search Facebook and Instagram by image or text and report in bulk (Meta).

TikTok. The IP report form covers videos and accounts, and TikTok Shop has its own IP Protection Centre for listings. Both need the registration number, jurisdiction and certificate.

Telegram and WhatsApp. There is no rights-owner programme. Telegram processes abuse reports on public channels. Closed groups and WhatsApp numbers are reachable only through a test purchase, which gives a bank account or a delivery address, and from there the criminal route.

What to prepare

  • Your authorised-seller list
  • A product catalogue
  • Access to your brand-registry accounts
  • Registration certificates for Türkiye, with Turkish translations, and a power of attorney for the person filing
  • A short “how to tell” sheet for each product line, since platforms increasingly ask why a listing is counterfeit rather than merely unauthorised
  • A log template: platform, seller name, store ID, listing URL, date notified, date removed, reference number

The authorised-seller list matters. Turkish platforms act against counterfeits quickly. They will not remove a listing for genuine goods sold outside your distribution network, and a complaint that mixes the two slows down the ones that count.

Repeat sellers

A seller whose listing is removed can open a new store the next day. The steps that stop this run in order.

  1. Store-level complaint. After two or three removals, we ask the platform to suspend the store rather than the listing, citing its own repeat-infringer rule and attaching the removal references.
  2. Identify the seller. Marketplaces must verify their sellers and display the seller’s trade name, MERSİS or tax number and address on the storefront. That information, with a test purchase and the invoice it generates, identifies a real business.
  3. Notarised warning (ihtarname). A notary letter demanding that sales stop, with a deadline, costs little and produces a signed record for later.
  4. Criminal complaint. Selling, storing or offering counterfeit goods is an offence under Art. 30 of the Industrial Property Code, and a prosecutor can order a search of the address on the invoice. A seller who discloses the supplier avoids punishment (Art. 30/7), which is often how one Instagram shop leads to a wholesaler.
  5. Civil injunction. Against a company that keeps relisting, a preliminary injunction from the IP court, served on the platforms, gives them a court order to refuse that seller.

Tracing a seller has legal limits. The Personal Data Protection Law No. 6698 (KVKK) applies, as do the Penal Code’s provisions on unlawfully obtaining or recording personal data (Arts. 135 and 136). Platforms, couriers and banks therefore disclose account holders only to a prosecutor or a court, never to a brand. Pretexting, buying data or scraping private profiles exposes the brand and its agents to liability and taints the evidence. What can lawfully be done is enough: public storefront data, test purchases, delivery addresses, company registry searches and the prosecutor’s powers once a complaint is filed.

What to do next

Set up the rights-owner accounts on Trendyol, Amazon.com.tr and Meta before you need them, and keep one log across all platforms. Decide the number of removals at which a seller moves from takedowns to a criminal complaint. Our online brand protection service runs the monitoring, the notices and the steps against repeat sellers.