Cloudy prospects for wear: according to a judgement of District Court of Bonn, warning wear app of German Meteorological service may no longer be offered free of charge. The authority’s app warns of storms and provides additional wear reports. This is seen by private competition as a tax-financed distortion of competition – and has been nunzunächst right.
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According to court, free warning wear app of German Meteorological Service (DWD) for smartphones, tablets and computers violates competition law, because not only disseminate official warnings, but provide comprehensive information about wear. For this reason, German meteorological service must demand remuneration according to legal bases.
Had sued Wear Online, a private provider of a wear app based in Bonn. Wear online requires money for its app or displays advertising in app to make money with app.
The DWD enhances its reputation with app
By offering warning wear app, court is of opinion that it is a business act in sense of competition law because German wear service offers services in competition with private companies. In this respect, German Meteorological Service does not act on sovereign, but is acting as an economic enterprise. It is irrelevant that warning wear app is offered free of charge.
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With app, German wear Service promotes its own company, increases its reputation and its reputation in market of wear service providers and thus its market power, court is located.
Wear Service wants to spread warnings about modern media
A DWD spokesman did not want to comment on consequences at first. It is only necessary to wait for full judgement to be found. The German meteorological service does not pursue commercial targets with app as an authority, he stressed. It’s about spreading background to wear warnings about a contemporary medium that really does reach people. This would provide citizens with information y need to realistically assess wear warnings.
A spokesman for Association of German Wear Service providers welcomed verdict. The German wear service was shot far beyond its remit with app. The authority should collect data, make it available, and warn of wear hazards. The warning wear app does far more than that.
The DWD spokesman, on or hand, was deliberately spreading only a small portion of information that meteorological service had in app. On or hand, German wear Service has been providing all its data for free to private services for ir work since summer of 2017. The private wear services in Germany fought in wrong place. The danger for your business model is not with German meteorological authority, but with international wear companies, for example from USA.
The German Meteorological Service can appeal against judgement of District Court of Bonn within one month (AZ.: 16 o 21/16).
