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The United States Federal Trade Commission (FTC) announced on 11 July 2016 that it had reached a settlement with Warner Brothers Entertainment (“Warner Brothers”) to resolve allegations that it deceived consumers during a marketing campaign for a video game. The FTC’s complaint stems from an online marketing campaign that Warner Brothers undertook in 2014 to generate publicity within the gaming community for the new release of Middle Earth: Shadow of Mordor, a fantasy role-playing game. Warner Brothers paid “influencers” tens to hundreds of thousands of dollars and told them how to promote the...

On 19 July 2016, the Ministry of Economy and Finance (Ministero dell’Economia e delle Finanze) issued a decree to identify the “specialised media” to which the general prohibition of gaming advertising on television and radio broadcasts between 7 a.m. and 10 p.m. does not apply. The Decree has been published in the Official Journal on 8 August 2016. Restrictions on gaming advertising were introduced by Legislative Decree no. 158 of 13 September 2012 (“Decreto Balduzzi”). In addition, Section 1, paragraph 939 of Law no. 208 of 28 December 2015 sets forth the prohibition on “generalist radio and...

On 27 July 2016, Spain’s National Authority for Markets and Competition (Comisión Nacional de los Mercados y la Competencia - CNMC) published the first report on the fulfilment of the Spanish Public Corporation (Corporación de Radio y Televisión Española - CRTVE) public interest duties and funding, corresponding to 2014. The 2006 National Public Radio and Television Act imposes the duty on an independent authority to assess the effectiveness of the public service broadcaster in delivering the public service purposes set out in the Law. Nevertheless, the absence of such authority before the creation...

In May and June 2016, the General Chamber of the Flemish Media Regulator issued six decisions that relate to the provisions in the Flemish Media Decree on sponsorship. In five cases the Chamber concluded that an infringement had occurred (for previous decisions, see IRIS 2015-6/6). Four of those five cases concerned a violation of Article 2 (41) of the Flemish Media Decree which contains the definition of sponsorship (“every contribution by a public or private company, the authorities, or a natural person not engaged in providing broadcasting services or producing audiovisual or audio works, to...

On 13 July 2016, the Italian Data Protection Authority issued a decision ruling that the processing of users’ personal data by the Italian satellite pay-TV operator Sky Italia, aimed at providing targeted advertising to some of its subscribers (Adsmart project), is in line with the Italian Data Protection Code (legislative decree No. 196 of 30 June 2003). Targeted advertising is a new advertising technique that enables the broadcaster to replace the advertising spots included in the linear feed with different, targeted advertising spots that are stored in the user’s decoder box. Thus, broadcasters...