The Advertising Board has decided that the “first month free” campaign for YouTube Premium misled consumers. As a result of the investigation, an administrative fine of 863,580 TL was imposed on Google Advertising and Marketing Co. Ltd., which is owned by Google. It was also decided to remove the campaign from publication.

The Competition Board found the YouTube Premium campaign misleading

Users who want to become new members of the YouTube Premium service are directed with expressions such as “1 month free trial”, “0 TL for 1 month”, “2 months free”, which are frequently encountered on the platform. However, users need to enter their credit card information into the system in order to benefit from these campaigns. At the end of the trial period, the subscription is automatically renewed and the user is charged.

The Advertising Board is of the opinion that this process is not compatible with the term “trial”. According to the Board’s assessment, it was determined that the average consumer expects the subscription to end automatically and no payment will be made from the term “trial”. However, the paid membership that automatically starts when the campaign period ends does not meet this expectation. The board decided that this should be considered as misleading advertising.

The Advertisement Board affiliated with the Ministry of Trade made its first decision regarding YouTube’s campaign in September 2024. At that time, a decision was made to stop advertising, but since YouTube is a global platform, a certain period of time was given for the changes to be implemented. Since no changes were made in the meantime and the campaign continued as “Try it for ₺0 for 1 month”, the file was reconsidered.

In the board meeting held on May 15, 2025, a definitive decision was made that the campaign was misleading to consumers. Google was imposed both a fine and an ad suspension sanction. It is not yet known how YouTube will respond to this decision or whether it will make changes to the campaigns.