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In a press release published on 21 December 2022, the Bundeskartellamt (Federal Cartels Office), Germany’s competition regulator, announced that the proceedings against Google News Showcase had been concluded after the company made a number of important adjustments to its service. The proceedings and the adjustments that have been made mainly concern the ancillary copyright of publishers in relation to Google’s “Google News Showcase” news service, which the Bundeskartellamt thought might breach competition law by squeezing the news services of press publishers and similar...

In a resolution adopted on 16 December 2022, the German Bundestag (lower house of parliament) approved a motion tabled by the ruling parties SPD, Bündnis 90/Die Grünen and FDP, aimed at strengthening the work of Deutsche Welle (DW), the international broadcaster of the Federal Republic of Germany. On the basis of the 2022-2025 task plan submitted by DW, the federal government, using the available budgetary resources, will help DW to readjust and clarify its content-related and organisational priorities and objectives, in particular its transformation into a digital media company, by providing...

At its 270th meeting in December 2022, the Kommission zur Ermittlung der Konzentration im Medienbereich (Commission on Concentration in the Media – KEK) decided that the proposed decisions of the relevant state media authorities concerning third-party broadcast times (Lower Saxony state media authority, RTL) and two regional windows (Hessen state media authority, RTL and Sat.1) were compatible with the rules designed to protect plurality of opinion. As a result, Germany’s two most popular broadcasters, RTL and Sat.1, will remain obliged to broadcast regional windows and provide broadcasting...

At its meeting on 19 October 2022, the Rundfunkkommission (Broadcasting Commission) of the German Länder expressed its views on the proposed European Media Freedom Act (EMFA). The draft Act had been published by the European Commission on 16 September. The EMFA is designed to protect media pluralism and independence in the EU. It also includes special rules for public service media and establishes an EU-wide media regulation authority. Its key objective is to protect the independence of the media and media professionals. It bans state interference, in particular direct and indirect state...

On 7 November 2022, the Kommission für Jugendmedienschutz (Commission for the Protection of Minors in the Media – KJM) announced that it had approved another age verification system, which means there are now 102 KJM-approved age verification systems on the market. The latest system to be approved, known as “FaceAssure”, was devised by Privately SA. Machine learning was used to train it to estimate a person’s age based on their biometric features. In order to mitigate the fact that some young people look older than they really are, the KJM requires the system to...