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Court Outlaws German Weather Service's Free Weather App

posted by martyb on Saturday March 14 2020, @01:34AM   Printer-friendly
from the monetizing-taxpayer-funded dept.

DannyB writes:

Court outlaws German Weather Service's free weather app

WetterOnline has won its case against Germany's national weather service. The company sued the service over the anti-competitive nature of its free weather forecast app.

The German Weather Service (DWD) will no longer be allowed to provide general weather forecasts in a free mobile phone app after a federal court ruled in favor of a private firm on Thursday.

[...] the national meteorological service will only be permitted to offer extreme weather warnings for free and that a DWD app offering general weather forecasts must contain advertisements or be purchased by users.

<sarcasm>
No national weather service could ever make a profit by giving away weather information for free.
</sarcasm>

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  • (Score: 3, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday March 14 2020, @06:29AM (3 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday March 14 2020, @06:29AM (#971064)

    If you need the government to ban competitors in order to prop up your own faulty business model, your business model wasn't viable to begin with. Corporatism isn't limited just to the US, clearly.

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  • (Score: 1) by khallow on Sunday March 15 2020, @12:37PM (2 children)

    by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Sunday March 15 2020, @12:37PM (#971544) Journal

    If you need the government to ban competitors in order to prop up your own faulty business model

    Sounds rather like the problem is that the government is the competitor, backed by a pile of taxpayer money. Do German taxpayers need to pay their government to devastate their weather reporting businesses? Maybe they do?

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 16 2020, @10:12AM (1 child)

      by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 16 2020, @10:12AM (#971832)

      Sounds rather like the problem is that the government is the competitor

      Unless you're a total anarchist who believes the government should provide no services at all, you don't really believe this.

      • (Score: 1) by khallow on Monday March 16 2020, @01:13PM

        by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Monday March 16 2020, @01:13PM (#971857) Journal

        Unless you're a total anarchist who believes the government should provide no services at all

        I think it should provide a whole lot less service than it currently does. Reporting weather is just part of it.