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On 25 April 2018, the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) adopted a Resolution on the protection of editorial integrity. The Resolution opens with PACE noting that several challenges to the editorial integrity and independence of the media had arisen in the member states. PACE also recalled that the emergence of online media and media-like information sources had triggered a decline in revenue for traditional media. According to PACE, this factor, coupled with less profitable obsolete business models and increased threats from organised crime, terrorism and armed conflicts, compromised...

On 13 March 2018, the Broadcasting Authority of Ireland (BAI) published updated Guidelines in Respect of Coverage of Referenda (for previous Guidelines, see IRIS 2015-5/19, IRIS 2013-8/27 and IRIS 2011-9/24). The guidelines have been published in advance of the planned referendum on the 36th Amendment of the Irish Constitution and further referenda on constitutional amendments and reforms to local government over the next number of years. The Broadcasting Act 2009 details the legal requirements placed on broadcasters in respect of their coverage of news and current affairs issues, including referenda....

In a decision of 1 March 2018 (Case no. 7 A 11938/17), the Oberverwaltungsgericht Rheinland-Pfalz (Rhineland-Palatinate Higher Administrative Court - OVG Rheinland-Pfalz) ruled that the German broadcasting contribution fee is compatible with European law. A private individual from Trier had complained about the levying of outstanding payments by Südwestrundfunk (SWR), arguing that the fee was incompatible with European law because it gave public service broadcasters an unfair advantage over their private competitors. However, this argument was rejected by the court. In its decision, the OVG stated...

On 21 February 2018, the UK Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) banned two television advertisements on the grounds that they breached the UK Code of Broadcast Advertising (BCAP Code) rules relating to the protection of children. The decisions provide helpful guidance on alcohol advertising, and advertisements which may be harmful to children. The first television advertisement was for a discount supermarket chain, Aldi Stores Ltd, and formed part of their 2017 Christmas campaign, which featured a computer-generated image of a carrot in a number of parodies of popular films. The advertisement...

The Court of First Instance in Brussels has ordered Facebook to stop tracking users on third-party sites, and to destroy all similar data it has illegally collected thus far. The judgment is the latest in a long-running legal battle between the Belgian Privacy Commission and Facebook. The former started court proceedings against the social network site in 2015, when a study revealed that Facebook tracked non-users and logged out users for advertising purposes through “data cookies” on external websites (“third-party tracking”). Summary proceedings resulted in a judgment by the Brussels Court of...