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In a recently published judgement, the Wiesbaden Regional Court ( Landgericht) ruled that comparative advertising on the Internet was not in itself inadmissible (see also IRIS 1998-3:3 and IRIS 1998-7:6). In 1997 the defendant, a health insurance company, had introduced a facility on its Internet site enabling people to compare its prices with those of other health insurance companies. If the user inputted his or her personal data and other information, the company's premium appeared on the screen. Another health insurance company could then be selected and its own premium would be shown. The premiums...

On 12 January, betaresearch, the Kirchgruppe R & D company, published the "betanova" Application Programming Interface (API) for its digital set top box (d-box). The set top box is necessary to decode the digital datastream into a television picture. With the publication of the programming interface it will now be possible for any programme supplier to develop its own new applications for the decoder. These can be electronic programme guides, for instance, and to implement these applications betaresearch has put a software development package on the market. The decision to open up the d-box to...

By its judgement on 15 December 1998, the 1st Cartel Division of the Frankfurt am Main Court of Appeal ( Oberlandesgericht - OLG) dismissed the appeal by a television production and marketing company against the International Automobile Federation ( Fédération Internationale de l'Automobile - FIA). The plaintiff was opposed to changes in Article 26 of the FIA statutes made by resolution on 20 October 1995 and 11 January 1996, under which (with effect from 1 January 1997) all film and television rights in motor racing events taking place in more than one country belonged to the FIA. The FIA subsequently...

On 17 December 1999, the Berlin Administrative Court ( Verwaltungsgericht - VG) held the practice followed by n-tv using a crawling display simultaneously with the normal picture for advertising purposes to be admissible. Since August 1998, the private news station n-tv had started running advertising material alongside stock prices in a crawling display on the lower part of the screen. The crawl strip was separated from the main programme by a red stripe. The advertising messages were preceded by two stars and the word "advertising" plus another star and closed off by the same sequence in reverse....

On the occasion of the directors' conference held 7 and 8 December 1998 in Munich, the directors of the regional media authorities have completed the first structural paper dated 16 December 1997 about the distinction between broadcasting and media services after a hearing of representatives of the association of private cable distributors ( Verband Privater Kabelnetzbetreiber e.V. - ANGA), of the study group for private broadcasting ( Arbeitsgemeinschaft Privater Rundfunk - APR), of the federal association of German newspaper publishers ( Bundesverband Deutscher Zeitungsverleger - BDZV), of the...