Category Archives: E-Commerce

WhatsApp ordered by a German court to not use English language terms and conditions towards users in Germany

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A German court has recently ordered WhatsApp to use German language terms and conditions towards users in Germany (see also here, for example). Or, to be more precise, called upon by a German consumer protection agency the Kammergericht, the appellate court for the district of Berlin, has, amongst other things, decided that using English language terms and conditions for user agreements to be concluded between WhatsApp and users in Germany is in violation of a certain provision of the German Civil Code that demands there to be transparency when using pre-worded terms and conditions towards consumers. So, if you allow the pun, what’s up with that? Continue reading →

No more “Stoererhaftung”?

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What was for a long time associated with high liability risks and warning letters from lawyers, will now be made easier by the German government: Free wifi-hotspots.  The German government has decided to modify the so called “Stoererhaftung” – the liability of the operator of a wifi-hotspot for any infringements of law committed through the hotspot. However, even though rumor still has it a few days after the presentation of the draft for the new German Teleservices Act, this does not mean that operators of wifi-hotspots now will not be liable for whatever happens through their hotspot. To speak of a complete abolition of “Stoererhaftung” is a bit too much, at least at the moment.

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Adblocker detection scripts vs. Article 5 (3) of the ePrivacy Directive: A German law take

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It appears that we may be about to experience a new phase in the life of Article 5 (3) of the ePrivacy Directive as amended in 2009, as brief as it may possibly be as a result of the coming Regulation and the revisions that the ePrivacy Directive may be subject to in its wake.

Twitter privacy activist Alexander Hanff has been able to create considerable attention (such as here and here) for his position that client side scripts used by publishers in order to detect AdBlockers used by their (would-be) readers are in conflict with said Article, posting on Twitter a letter from the Günther Oettinger’s team in the EU Commission that, as per him, confirms his position.

https://twitter.com/alexanderhanff/status/722861362607747072

Aside from the slightly amusing twist that the Commission, in making reference in the same letter to add-ons or plug-ins expressing a user’s preference regarding, for example, whether or not he or she does or does not accept the storage of information on his/her “terminal equipment”, appears to overlook that adblockers have to be detected first before they can be “respected” as conveying a preference, we shall have a brief look at how things would play out under German law, as it is in place at this time. Continue reading →

Why B2B is not necessarily always B2B when it comes to consumer protection

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Online-shops that officially trade as B2B-shops must comply with European consumer protection regulations or make actually sure that only business customers can place orders in the shop. In order to ensure that consumers do not use the shop, it is not sufficient to provide the respective disclaimer on the website. That was recently ruled by the Regional Court in Dortmund.

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Do XING profiles require a masthead?

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This past summer, a decision of the Stuttgart Regional Court became known by the name #XINGGATE. In its decision (LG Stuttgart, decision of June 27, 2014 – file number: 11 O 51/14), the court held XING profiles to be independent telemedia, to which § 5 Telemediengesetz, the German Law on Telemedia (TMG) applies, meaning that personal XING profiles have be equipped with a masthead under German law.

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Are Dynamic IP-Addresses “Personal Data” As Defined By the EU Data Protection Directive?

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And if so; May they be recorded? – The German Federal Court of Justice (BGH) in its decision dated October 28, 2014, court ref. VI ZR 135/13 referred to the to the European Court of Justice (ECJ) for a preliminary ruling regarding the interpretation of the EU Data Protection Directive concerning the definition of the term “personal data” therein and recording of dynamic IP-addresses. Continue reading →

(More) certainty ahead: liability of commercial operators of open WLAN networks

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Commercial WLAN operators will soon be certain about when and in how far they are liable for violations of third party rights by their users. The District Court in Munich (7 O 14719/12) has stayed the proceedings in a pending litigation and has submitted questions to the European Court of Justice (ECJ).

Inter alia, the court asks the liability privilege regulated in the European e-commerce directive and the German Teleservices Act (“Telemediengesetz” – TMG) is to be interpreted in a way that claims for injunctive relief, damage claims, and claims for the reimbursement of costs for warnings and court proceedings are excluded against the WLAN-operator in general or at least with regard to the first violation of third party rights. According to the respective provisions in the directive and the TMG; access providers are not responsible for the information submitted through their services.

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Is double opt-in dead?

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Last week, quite a few lawyers were more than surprised when they heard about a recent Higher Regional Court of Munich decision dealing with the question of how to get prior consent from recipients of advertising e-mails (decision of September 27, 2012, docket no. 29 U 1682/12). Before, the matter had seemed to be fairly settled but now new questions arise. Continue reading →

On the Intricacies of German Unfair Competition Law

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It‘s easy to be a unfair competition law violator in Germany. Just operate an eBay shop or deal on Amazon’s market place and use their default settings when informing your customers on how long it will take to get the goods delivered to their homes. In all seriousness, that is what the Bremen Court of Appeals has effectively decided in a judgment in early October. Continue reading →

E-Commerce Law Reports with our article on Oracle v. UsedSoft

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As a blogger you are always happy to receive feedback from your readers. So I was really pleased when shortly after posting my recent comments about the CJEU’s UsedSoft decision, the E-Commerce Law Reports approached me to ask whether I could write a more detailed article about the case for their August 2012 issue. Recently published, this issue also contains a number of other fascinating contributions by colleagues from around the world on a variety of important topics such as the online collection of consumer data, search engines’ liability for misleading search results, the cloning of games, advertising on Twitter, etc. Check it out: http://www.e-comlaw.com/e-commerce-law-reports/

Injunctive relief under competition law

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Data protection is big in Europe, especially in Germany. It is not possible to process personal data without a data protection law regulation the data processing. And while data protection laws are primarily supposed to protect the individual’s right to determine how his or her data is being processed, data protection has also become a commercial factor. On the one hand, companies are restricted in their ways of advertisement towards their customers. According to section 28 subsection 3 of the Federal Data Protection Act for example, advertisement is dependent on the individual customer’s consent. On the other hand, data protection compliance demands investments in the implementation of data protection standards within the company, for example to lay down the technical and organizational measures demanded by section 9 of the Federal Data Protection Act. Continue reading →

German E-Commerce Law: “Button Solution” To Come into Force in August 2012

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In March 2012 the German Federal Legislator adopted several comsumer protection statutes that will have considerable impact on B2C e- and m-commerce business activities in Germany, implementing, in particular, Art. 8 (2) of Directive 2011/83/EU. The new law applies to any contractural transaction that is entered into via electronic means of communication and leads to payment obligations for the consumer, i.e. any purchase of a book in an online shop, any subscription of content services made as an in app purchase, as well as any other such contract unless it is free of charge. Continue reading →