Noerr successfully represents Wort & Bild Verlag in legal proceedings regarding a collaboration between the German Federal Government and Google

Headed by partner Johannes Kreile, Noerr has represented publishing house Wort & Bild Verlag in complaint proceedings based on discrimination against a provider by Google.

The competent Commission on Licencing and Supervision (Kommission für Zulassung und Aufsicht der Landesmedienanstalten, “ZAK“), the central body of the 14 German state media authorities, granted a complaint filed by the publishing house on account of breach of the new German Interstate Media Treaty (Medienstaatsvertrag). The proceedings were conducted by the media authority of Hamburg/Schleswig-Holstein.

Wort & Bild Verlag had complained that the website www.gesund.bund.de, which is operated by the German Federal Ministry of Health, was always listed first by search engine provider Google. Wort & Bild Verlag is the provider of the editorial content of www.apotheken-umschau.de.

This is the first successful complaint case conducted before the state media authorities against a media intermediary on the basis of the new Interstate Media Treaty for discrimination against a provider. Since November 2020, media intermediaries such as search engines have also been subject to media regulation.

Between 10 November 2020 and 10 February 2021, the website content of www.gesund.bund.de had been preferentially displayed in the German version of the Google search engine. This was based on a collaboration between Google and the German Federal Ministry of Health which according to the ZAK decision infringes the freedom from discrimination guaranteed under the new Interstate Media Treaty.

Section 94 of the Interstate Media Treaty states that “in order to safeguard diversity of opinion, media intermediaries are not allowed to discriminate against journalistic-editorial offers, the discernibility of which they have a particularly high influence on.”

ZAK now found that other journalistic-editorial content providers were unreasonably constrained in the specific case.

A prohibition order was not issued since the collaboration between the German Federal Ministry of Health and Google had already been terminated as a result of a competition decision.

“The successful complaint shows that the new Interstate Media Treaty provides effective tools for promoting journalistic diversity on the Internet”, said Noerr partner Johannes Kreile.

Counsel to Wort & Bild Verlag Konradshöhe GmbH & Co. KG: Noerr Partnerschaftsgesellschaft mbB

Professor Johannes Kreile, Dr Jan Weismantel