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Google and complaint platform reviews have become a significant factor in how a business is perceived externally. While some businesses may gain an unfair competitive advantage by purchasing positive reviews, negative reviews can also be posted due to unfair competition or personal animosity. Even if such reviews are based on true events, this does not always prove their lawfulness. The core problem arises from reviews that are based on untrue events, are defamatory, or even contain direct insults. Such reviews may violate personal rights and/or constitute unfair competition.
How can these reviews be removed?
As a first step, you can report the relevant review directly to Google or the respective platform via a removal request. You can do this online, as well as through written petitions submitted to representative offices/branches or formal notices sent via notary (notarial warnings).
The notice method will not yield much success in situations requiring a judicial legal assessment, especially in cases where there is no clear and obvious violation of freedom of expression. Indeed, any other approach would mean handing the key to freedom of expression over to a service provider and turning it into a judge.
When no result is obtained from the notice or if there is apprehension that the concerned party might post a similar review again, protective lawsuits concerning personal rights—regulated under the Turkish Civil Code (TMK)—must be filed. In cases reaching the level of unfair competition, protective lawsuits under the Turkish Code of Obligations (TBK) and the Turkish Commercial Code (TTK) must be brought.
Before the Constitutional Court's (AYM) annulment decision, according to Article 9 of Law No. 5651, such applications could be made to criminal judgeships of peace on an ex parte (non-adversarial / hasımsız) basis by framing them under personal rights. However, since Article 9 of Law No. 5651 has been annulled, you must now file a lawsuit requesting access blocking and content removal before civil courts by designating a proper defendant (adversary).
Here, the defendant/respondent is primarily the individual who wrote the review. However, it is often not possible to identify the person who wrote the review and direct a claim (husumet) against them. It has been established in the European Court of Human Rights' (ECtHR) famous Delfi judgment and Supreme Court practice that Google and other internet service providers are also liable for comments whose publication they directly mediate. Therefore, it is also possible to direct claims against them. Furthermore, since the 'unlawfulness of the content' is sufficient in most protective lawsuits, the fault of the publisher is not sought. Such fault can only be sought in compensation lawsuits. Secondly, since the relevant platform will be aware of the unlawful content after the notice, its fault will arise at that very moment.
Article 8 of Law No. 5651 enumerates certain catalogue crimes that are unlikely to be committed through Google reviews or complaint site reviews. Nevertheless, should such a situation occur, relying on the relevant article is possible for certain reviews.
Article 8/A of Law No. 5651 regulates decisions for the removal of content / blocking of access that can be issued based on reasons such as protecting the safety of life and property of individuals and preventing the commission of crimes. Particularly in thousands of comments containing insults and threats written after a "lynch mob" (cancel culture / linç akımı) trend carried out via social media, it is possible to rely on this article if there are comments that clearly exceed freedom of expression and could lead to a crime.
There are over twenty provisions in our legislation regulating the removal of content and blocking of access. In some of these, the administration makes the decision or files the application. For instance, Law No. 1262 on Medicinal and Pharmaceutical Preparations, the Law on Fundraising, and the Law on the Protection of Consumers are of this nature. In such cases, if the review falls within the framework of the norm, results can be achieved through administrative application routes.
Even if a review constitutes a crime and the perpetrator is even punished, this does not mean that the review will be removed from the internet environment. This is because criminal courts do not issue access blocking / content removal decisions, except for the catalogue crimes under Law No. 5651. The ordinary remedy in criminal proceedings is confiscation (müsadere), meaning the transfer of ownership to the public / destruction of the corpus delicti (items of crime). Undoubtedly, it is not possible to forcibly apply this for a Google or complaint site review. Therefore, even if the content constitutes a crime, if the objective is the removal of this review, one must proceed through the correct method via which this result can be attained.
