Last year, Unitymedia changed its contractual terms to the effect that customers had to expressly object to their routers being used as public hotspots.
If the customer does not object, Unitymedia can also convert the private router into a public Wi-Fi hotspot.
These contractual conditions have now been rejected by the Regional Court of Cologne in a ruling dated May 9, 2017 (Ref.: 31 O 227/16).
Without the express prior consent of its customers, the internet provider may not misuse the private routers as public Wi-Fi hotspots.
Unitymedia wants nationwide WLAN networks
With the new contractual agreements, Unitymedia was actually pursuing the goal of creating a nationwide Wi-Fi network for Unitymedia customers.
Unitymedia is thus following the idea of Telekom and Vodafone, which have so far successfully opened up their customers’ routers to all their customers by making the configuration settings publicly accessible.
In contrast to Telekom and Vodafone, however, Unitymedia opted for a so-called opt-out procedure.
Every private Unitymedia router was initially automatically activated for use by the public.
Such activation could only be reversed if the customer expressly objected to such use.
Violation of competition law
In the opinion of the consumer advice center, this approach constitutes an unlawful extension of the contracts, which Unitymedia must refrain from.
Unitymedia only responded to a warning with a refusal, which is why the consumer advice center filed a lawsuit with the Cologne Regional Court.
In its ruling, the Cologne Regional Court largely followed the views of the consumer association.
Unitymedia’s actions were anti-competitive.
This is because customers are unreasonably inconvenienced by the internet provider due to the cumbersome opt-out procedure and the activation of a public hotspot, Section 7 para.
1 sentence 1, 8 para.
1, para.
3 UWG.
Opt-out inadmissible: Customer must make a certain effort to object
The customer must specifically deal with the significance of the activation if he does not want to accept it without any examination.
Therefore, the opt-out procedure is also unreasonably annoying.
Older people in particular are unlikely to be able to make a sensible decision given the complexity of the technical requirements and functionality.
In addition, young users are always afraid of “data theft”, which is facilitated by the activation of private routers.
However, Unitymedia is not satisfied with the ruling and now wants to take its opt-out procedure to the next higher instance – the Higher Regional Court of Cologne.