BONN (dpa-AFX) – A court has found a federal violation in the design of its portal with information about health. The district court in Bonn announced on Wednesday that the plaintiff, a publisher, was entitled to an injunctive relief. The Wort & Bild publishing house based in Bavaria, which publishes the “Apotheken Umschau” among other things, had sued, also because it sees competition from the federal government’s offer (“gesund.bund.de”) to publishing houses, which also publish portals offer health.
The court said: “According to the reasoning of the chamber, a large part of the articles posted on the portal exceed the limits of permissible state information action. These articles contain no information on acute dangerous situations, but general information such as a health dictionary or tips and advice for a healthy life .” In order to do justice to his state tasks and duty of care towards the citizens, such a portal of the federal government is not necessary. The court also sees the point of competition with private providers and also cited the requirement of being remote from the state.
However, the publisher did not prevail with the demand for a liability for damages. According to the court, the not yet final judgment does not mean that the entire portal has been banned.
The Federal Ministry of Health, which operates the health portal, said when asked for a reaction to the verdict: “Please understand that we do not comment on the verdict immediately after the judge’s verdict. We will examine the verdict internally, evaluate it and based on it the appropriate Draw consequences.”
The CEO of Wort & Bild Verlag, Andreas Arntzen, said: “The decision of the Bonn Regional Court is a great success for the entire publishing industry and for freedom of the press. As the cornerstone of free opinion-forming, the free press must not be impaired by competitive offers from the state .”
The magazine association MVFP also made a statement. The managing director for Europe and media policy in the Media Association of the Free Press (MVFP), Christoph Fiedler, said: “The fact that a federal ministry runs its own specialist medium with full editorial reporting on health issues is a fatal taboo.”
There had already been a judgment on the federal health portal. The Munich Regional Court prohibited cooperation between the federal government and Google in 2021 and saw an antitrust violation. The Internet company had prominently highlighted the content of the portal. At that time, Burda had complained. The cooperation was presented in 2020 by the then Federal Minister of Health Jens Spahn (CDU)./rin/DP/stw