
Court outlaws German Weather Service's free weather app - 4ad
https://www.dw.com/en/court-outlaws-german-weather-services-free-weather-app/a-52735502
======
SimeVidas
> The German Weather Service (DWD) will no longer be allowed to provide
> general weather forecasts in a free mobile phone app. … [DWD] will only be
> permitted to offer extreme weather warnings for free and … a DWD app
> offering general weather forecasts must contain advertisements or be
> purchased by users.

The government service is forced to put ads in its free app. WTF?

~~~
tpetry
We‘ve got a problem in germany with anything spent for by tax money. If
something is done by tax money and some private company is doing the same with
their own money the will go to court because the other one has an unfair
advantage.

For example we have some tv channels being run by tax money (not absolutely
correct, its a forced pay for everyone not included in taxes but its basically
the same) without any ads. Any many free private channels fiddled with ad
pauses. The tax ones wanted to put their movies online in a netflix style for
free long before netflix but the private ones wonnin court because it would be
unfair. Nowadays they are allowed to put them online but only for 30 days
after airing in tv, everything else would be unfair to the real low-quality
free channels...

~~~
mikorym
If that is the argument, then I think the priority now for the DWD is to offer
a cheaper and better product.

I think this also means that the DWD can now be more business orientated and
perhaps grow their income?

I am not German, but I am trying to see whether this can be to the DWD's
advantage.

~~~
travisoneill1
Lets say that the government and DWD developed equivalent apps but DWD did it
at half the cost. If the government app has to charge users based on its
costs, then it will be twice as expensive, and lose out to the more efficient
private company. But if they are just allowed to give it out to consumers for
free (which a private company can't do) then it will dominate the market even
though it is not the best use of resources. I assume that is the rationale for
this law.

~~~
xenonite
If you meant DWD (=government) did it at double the cost, then this makes
sense.

~~~
nybble41
I believe travisoneill1 was confusing the government weather service DWD with
the firm filing the suit, WetterOnline.

------
dmos62
This is beyond me. So if I open a pay-to-visit park in Germany, can I get the
courts to close down all open-access parks? This isn't natural competition,
more like subsidizing by faking scarcity. What's more, the public sector
should (contrary to this development) provide more internet services and
resources: that's a good thing. Their financial incentives in many cases are
better than the private sector's. And, they should do it for free where it
makes sense, like when you're already indirectly financing the public weather
department.

~~~
magduf
This is a court ruling I would have expected to see in America, not western
Europe. WTF is going on over there?

~~~
lima
Money rules everywhere.

Courts in the German state of Baden-Württemberg also recently forcibly
privatized the State Forestry Service's logging operations because they were
considered a monopoly (the "Forstkartell") and the sawmill industry sued in
hope of lower timber prices.

This forced the regional Forestry Service departments to split into two
organizations - the logging operations and the government authority, now
regulating its former self. Government and state forestry services are now
supposed compete with each other on prices.

Of course, this ended up _increasing_ timber prices due to the resulting
mountains of paperwork, the organizational chaos that would be expected from
splitting up a hundreds of years old government organization, and the extra
personnel/training required.

Lawyers got paid and tax payer money was burnt, and the main purpose of the
Forestry Service - environmental protection and research - suffers from the
overhead.

Oh, and the state-ran broadcasting organizations need to _delete_ productions
- paid for by everyone's broadcast tax money - from their online media
libraries after a few weeks because private media organizations sued because
it supposedly competes with their for-profit streaming services.

~~~
dmix
Germany also killed Walmart there via existing entrenched shops simply
complaining about the price competition.

That seems far more German to me than something the US would tolerate. They
rank below the US in economic freedom, but not by much:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Index_of_Economic_Freedom](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Index_of_Economic_Freedom)

As you mentioned it might be a regional thing. But maybe I'm being idealistic
considering the US's general shift away from markets and the cronyism in
certain pet industries.

~~~
iforgotpassword
> Germany also killed Walmart there via existing entrenched shops simply
> complaining about the price competition.

First time I heard that. The generally accepted explanation over here is that
they _couldn 't match_ prices of established chains that had well optimized
supply chains, and that they absolutely failed to account for cultural
differences regarding how to deal with customers and employees.

Edit:
[https://youtube.com/watch?v=58_BZjnbMyw](https://youtube.com/watch?v=58_BZjnbMyw)

~~~
sitkack
Grocery stores in Germany are 1/2-1/3 the price of the US. I could see Walmart
botching a German operation.

------
kuschku
Interestingly, all of the data which is shown in the DWD app, and third-party
apps, is available free of charge since 2019.

You can look at the price list here:
[https://www.dwd.de/SharedDocs/downloads/DE/allgemein/preisli...](https://www.dwd.de/SharedDocs/downloads/DE/allgemein/preisliste_2019.pdf)

All the important stuff is free.

So one would just have to develop a free app to process and display this data
;)

~~~
lima
Interesting, I did not expect the high-resolution COSMOS-D2 and ICON weather
models to be available free of charge. Cool!

Basically, the data is free, but most higher-level processing results are not
(like point forecasts derived from the models).

~~~
kuschku
Actually, point forecasts are also free – but only for places where they
already have to create the forecasts (you can find those on their FTP for
free).

It’s high quality data, for free, you’d just have to build your own frontend.

------
heyitsguay
Don't German citizens pay for this information through taxes? Is this
different from forbidding citizens from using the police instead of private
security companies because they're providing security services "for free"?

~~~
mqus
Well, the security part (extreme weather warnings) were and will be free, just
the weather prediction part is not. And from the brief period where it was
free I remember it as being a impressively good app, completely unexpected
from a government agency, which was probably one of the reasons the company
sued...

Edit: The data is also freely available for private use on their website, just
not as nice and compact.

------
mgoetzke
Maybe the commercial companies should not compete on quality of data with
publicly available data from the government ?

They can still provide their app, but must offer something better than just
the same data.

WTF.

------
jakub_g
> The private Bonn-based firm considered the DWD app anti-competitive as it
> put commercial providers at a disadvantage since they could not provide the
> information for free.

Is the official data not free? Maybe the solution should rather be to make the
data free, rather than make the official app non-free?

~~~
reitzensteinm
My private firefighting service is struggling to get off the ground due to the
government's anticompetitive price dumping at well below market rate.

~~~
JorgeGT
Firefighting used to be a private service since Roman times until recently.
Some old buildings in my city still bear a plaque saying "Fire insured"
signaling that in case of fire, they should be saved. If not, the firefighters
would just control the spreading to other (insured) buildings.

~~~
mcv
Capitalism has taken a hit since Roman times.

~~~
JorgeGT
Yep. People talk about "peak capitalism", "late capitalism" etc. but they
don't realize the world used to be much, much more extreme. Even until a few
centuries ago, even public cops or prosecutors weren't a thing.

~~~
mytherin
Isn't that why people call it _late_ capitalism, because it is in its final
phases? Pure, unfettered capitalism has been dwindling for a long time, mostly
because of issues like slavery, severe exploitation of workers and forced
child labor. Yet still many issues remain.

I would say peak capitalism is colonial times, when companies had private
armies and people were enslaved/massacred for profit.

------
dahooz42
Note that this is the status quo since 2017, when the DWD lost in court the
first time.

At that time they began to charge 1,99€ and have done so ever since.

I've happily paid that, as in my opinion it is one of the most reliable
weather forecasts for Germany, not only for the general audience, but also for
prosumers. For example, they provide high quality precipitation radar images,
I regularly can determine the onset of rain with minute accuracy.

------
fimdomeio
There's a very interesting article/podcast episode about how the weather data
is freely shared between countries:
[https://99percentinvisible.org/episode/the-weather-
machine/](https://99percentinvisible.org/episode/the-weather-machine/)

It only makes this news sound even worse. Weather information only exists
because the source data is freely shared, thinking anyone can lock down this
information is obscene.

------
fxtentacle
In my (German) opinion, the court did a great job by stating only that they
need ads in general but leaving the amount undetermined.

Most likely, the DWD will show a one-time ad to everyone activating the free
weather service. Most likely, they can even make it 5 minutes of uninterrupted
ads, because everyone knows that it's a one-time thing and it's easy enough to
ignore your phone for 5 minutes if you can choose the time when the ad plays.

And afterwards, the DWD has realized a year worth of ad revenue per user and
is free to provide the service for free and ad free like they used to.

So while technically WetterOnline won, it won't have much consequences.

That said, I myself am a paid subscriber for WetterOnline because their
worldwide real-time radar videos are super helpful, and the German weather
service obviously provides data only for Germany. So I'm not really sure why
they felt the need to sue in the first place.

~~~
Zenbit_UX
Let me frame this in another way, the court acted in the best interest of a
private company over the interests of its own people.

~~~
luckylion
Courts are decidedly _not_ a political instrument, their judgements should be
by law, not by utilitarian considerations.

~~~
etrabroline
The courts are run by people in the same unpopular political establishment as
the rest of the country. Yes, they absolutely are a political instrument,
although some people like to pretend otherwise when they get their policies
undemocratically rammed into law through the courts.

All legal systems make utilitarian considerations. Furthermore, legal systems
like Germany's are even more respectful of common sense than ones based on
English common law.

~~~
luckylion
> The courts are run by people in the same unpopular political establishment
> as the rest of the country.

I don't disagree, but that's de facto. Nominally, they're independent and
Germany doesn't rely on judge's guesstimates as much, they are supposed to
apply the laws, not create them, which is why the German Constitutional Court
has been criticized for becoming politically activist instead of remaining
neutral.

Since they're de facto appointed by the political establishment, you can't
expect them to not be carefully selected for "obedience by accident" (they're
independent, they just happen to think the same way), but you can also not do
it too obviously if you don't want to shake the cage too much or people might
disregard the courts completely.

Government institutions with mission creep issues that start to grow is a
common problem in Germany, and the courts regularly tell them to stop, this
isn't a new development.

------
chewz
WetterOnline has pretty lame app which didn't change much over last 10 years
or so.

[https://www.wetteronline.de/apps](https://www.wetteronline.de/apps)

If everyone gives them one star Apple will kick their app out of Appstore.

~~~
rerx
I like the app (on Android though) and paid 3 Euros or so once. Their weather
and rain "radars" are really useful.

~~~
flo123456
The „funny“ thing is that they are using data provided by DWD (for free) for
those.

------
matt_morgan
Here in the US I have a free, open source desktop weather app (OpenWeatherMap)
that lets me set the location to many German locales. On my phone I have
something similar. Surely people in Germany could install these same apps? Who
is paying for weather in Germany?

~~~
PinguTS
This is totally missing the point.

The point is DWD is tax financed service to process weather data and to
distribute it to the once that need such weather data. As it is pay by taxes,
the data is distributed free of charge. The are many services, even the one
you just mentioned, that uses exactly that data to distribute it further. DWD
build its own app to inform about severe weather conditions as this is also
allowed by DWD. Then DWD added just the regular weather data to the exact same
app including rain radar and such things, that OpenWeatherMap for example does
not provide. DWD got sued for this by the companies who using the exact same
DWD weather data and selling it to the customers either by adding ads or by
subscription.

By the way OpenWeatherMap is providing just basic weather data that is
actually allowed to be included into the app for free. We are talk about much
more detailed data.

------
Kaiyou
Reminds me of the Candle Maker Petition about the unfair competition of the
sun. Very good read with good insights. It's satire.

------
my_first_acct
The Norwegian Meteorological Institute provides free, worldwide weather
forecast information via an API [1].

Perhaps some public-minded German-speaking developer could create a free no-ad
app using this data, to provide WetterOnline with some competition.

[1] api.met.no

~~~
tyfon
You can also use the webpage and mobile app "yr.no" for free global
forecasting.

~~~
Symbiote
To reduce costs, they don't particularly encourage use outside Norway / Nordic
countries.

Last time I read the API documents, they were only in Norwegian for this
purpose.

Edit: it seems this is no longer the case; at least I can't find it on the
site. But my Norwegian skills are practically non-existant.

~~~
sveniv
English info on the yr.no data access api is here: [https://hjelp.yr.no/hc/en-
us/categories/200450271-About-Yr-t...](https://hjelp.yr.no/hc/en-
us/categories/200450271-About-Yr-the-API-and-our-privacy-policy)

This data is provided by the Norwegian meteorological institute:
[https://www.met.no/en/free-meteorological-data](https://www.met.no/en/free-
meteorological-data)

There is also a private Norwegian weather provider, StormGeo:
[https://www.stormgeo.com/](https://www.stormgeo.com/)

------
cryptoz
Is NOAA allowed to develop US weather apps? I vaguely recall that Accuweather
or others lobbied to prevent official US NWS weather apps from existing.

~~~
nate_meurer
It was way worse than that. Back in 2005, Rick Santorum, the republican
senator from AccuWeather's home state, introduced a bill that sought to
privatize the National Weather Service's weather data and forecast products.
AccuWeather's Founder and CEO, brothers Joel and Barry Myers, were among
Santorum's biggest campaign donors, and they argued that the NWS forecast
products were unfairly preventing them from making money on their similar
products. Accuweather used the NWS data themselves, so they sought to prevent
the NWS from publishing the data publicly, while preserving their own access
to it.

Not coincidentally, Donald Trump has nominated Barry Meyers to lead the
National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

A good summary is at [https://www.outsidethebeltway.com/rick-santorums-war-
against...](https://www.outsidethebeltway.com/rick-santorums-war-against-the-
national-weather-service/)

The bill was called the National Weather Service Duties Act of 2005.

~~~
NelsonMinar
At that time there was also an effort to privatize aviation data, the Aeronav
products that the FAA produces. It was a huge clusterfuck but in the end
calmed down.

In both cases the result would be significantly worse applications for
consumers. There's a lot of fantastic weather apps built on free NWS and NOAA
data, things like Dark Sky, that would be impossible if the data were not
freely available. Same for aviation with apps like Foreflight.

------
triangulum
This is very surprising for a country like Germany, which has a long history
of providing public services for the common good, rather than profit oriented
motives.

On the other hand, a comparably developed country like Australia is seeing
many essential services being privatised, but the weather service rightfully
remains a sacred government entity, with a high amount of public trust.
[http://www.bom.gov.au/app/](http://www.bom.gov.au/app/)

> With the BOM Weather app you can check the weather—wherever you are—from
> Australia's official weather source, the Bureau of Meteorology.

~~~
plantain
>has a long history of providing public services for the common good, rather
than profit oriented motives.

Hahaha. BOM charges extortionate, nonviable prices for <i>everything</i> above
the basics. Australia is one of the hardest countries for us to get reliable
weather data from.

The trouble with government agencies run on a cost-recovery basis, is they
have no incentive to do anything at a cost that will be recoverable.

~~~
dannyw
Should run govt agencies on a 75% cost recovery basis.

------
diebeforei485
This seems like a bad outcome for consumers. I don't the context in Germany,
but in my opinion: weather information should be a public service available to
everyone for free.

Commercial providers can provide alternatives with features that people are
willing to pay for. For example: better UI, push notifications when it's about
to rain (as Dark Sky does), morning push reminders to take an umbrella if the
day is looking rainy, etc.

~~~
londons_explore
The flip side is weather forecasting is a rapidly evolving field. R&D into
techniques for more accurate forecasts is very expensive, and governments
aren't great at that kind of innovation.

If all weather forecast apps were paid for, apps would have revenue to perfect
their models, and true competition would exist between them, both in terms of
price, but also quality of results.

~~~
angry_octet
This is such bullshit. Prove to me that NOAA/ECMWF/JMA/BOM/UKMet Office are
bad at forecast innovation. I'll wait.

~~~
thomasfortes
Put the Brazilian INPE in this list too, it's sad that some people created an
imaginary world in their heads where innovation comes only from private
companies...

When we're talking about physical sciences most of the work is done by
universities and research centers, a lot of them funded by public money.

------
fierarul
This makes perfect sense to me if I think how things are in Romania (and I
suspect it's the same in Germany too).

The Romanian state entity _sells_ access to their weather data. So any 3rd
party would, indeed, be at a severe disadvantage with a free app.

Last I checked they wouldn't even _confirm_ if at least the severe warning
notices were available to the public without a license.

So, the thing that's missing here is: where were WetterOnline getting the data
from? They clearly were paying for it. I suspect they were getting it from
none other than the German Weather Service.

The solution would be, of course, for this dataset to be free. But German
Weather Service preferred the courts to find another solution...

~~~
oneplane
Most of the data is free and access costs no money. Some of it is even free
across all of Europe due to open governmental data regulations.

Some detailed or highly localised data would probably only be available
commercially. But satellite data for example can be downloaded realtime by
anyone.

~~~
fierarul
Then why was WetterOnline paying for the data and how could they make a case
out of it. Something is still missing...

~~~
VonGallifrey
If WetterOnline was paying for their weather data then they didn't get their
data from DWD.

The DWD data is completely free. You don't even need a registration or API key
or something like that. I just tried and downloaded Radar images. I can't read
that format, but I could download it.

The issue is that the legal mandate of DWD is just to provide the data and not
to compete with private companies. It probably made sense when those laws
where written, but now it is just stupid.

~~~
oneplane
The problem with such a non-compete law is that your public service doesn't
really need to change much over time, but a commercial business might figure
out a way to make money off of it and suddenly the private side changed
forcing the public side to shut down or something like that and now everyone
that was building on top of that public stuff gets screwed over. The side-
effects are so big, it's hard to capture in a law.

~~~
VonGallifrey
> private side changed forcing the public side to shut down or something

As far as I am aware they are purely funded by Taxes, so I can't imagine any
way that these private companies could change to force the public service to
close.

~~~
oneplane
Well, say a weather data service is provided by the government but is only
allowed to operate as long as they don't compete with a commercial service. At
that time there is no commercial service so it's fine.

10 years later a commercial service is started and now the public service has
to change because that's what the law says. The public service didn't do
anything wrong and didn't change anything, but because something in the
private space changed the public space now has to stop providing a service.
That's what I meant by change in the weather data example.

------
kitteh
Disturbing to see. We have the same issue in the US as well. Specifically some
companies want NOAA/NWS to give their data to private companies who buy
licenses and then the public can go to those companies (ex: AccuWeather). To
me, weather (current observations or forecasts) is a public safety thing.
Whether you're driving in the mountains and need an accurate forecast to make
a go/no go decision or if you're a pilot and need to know freezing levels or
other items. I've seen other things like aviation charts and terminal plates
where private companies don't want the FAA to give it away for free, either
(again: public safety - it should be free).

------
looperhacks
The article is a little bit light on the details. While I don't agree with the
situation, the decision is based on the law for the DWD[1]. According to §4
(1) Nr. 3 DWDG, the only public information is for weather warnings. While in
reality, most other information is free, providing it for free is not the tax-
payed task of the DWD. According to §4 (1) DWDG, it may only provide free
information for the public if it's due to their legal obligation.

[1]:
[https://www.bundesgerichtshof.de/SharedDocs/Pressemitteilung...](https://www.bundesgerichtshof.de/SharedDocs/Pressemitteilungen/DE/2020/2020028.html)

------
microcolonel
I mean, this is an understandable argument, but the moral harm of the
government broadcasting the weather data they _produce anyway_ for free is not
so great (in my opinion) that it should be stopped.

If DWD has an API, I guess somebody should just put up an open source app on
F-Droid, and maybe somebody will pay to put it on Play. I don't know about iOS
anymore, last time I made an iOS app it was kinda something you would only do
if there was money in it.

I agree somewhat with the general argument, but I don't think the courts
should be pushing for "peak neoliberalism" at any cost.

------
jackyinger
That’s preposterous! I presume that the German people have already paid for
the German Weather Service, and their app, with their taxes. In general it
seems suspect to have companies make money off of repackaging data created
with public funds...

Glad the US isn’t the only place with the privatize everything problem?
(Please allow me to be hyperbolic.)

~~~
riazrizvi
Is it fair that public funds are used to destroy one company’s business? That
seems like a path to corruption. Imagine in the US if Democrats or Republicans
were able to take reprisals against uncooperative businesses once they won
power...

~~~
dTal
"Fair" or not, if there's only one business i.e. a monopoly, then it ought to
be socialized. Is it "fair" to profiteer because you're the only provider of
something people _need_?

(This is a very old question - note the vitriol reserved for millers of flour
in the Canterbury Tales.)

~~~
riazrizvi
Why are you talking about profiteering? This was just a business doing it’s
thing.

State sponsored enterprise is what happens in autocratic countries. At the
whim of the ruler enterprise is expropriated, whenever something is seen as
adequately tempting.

You may think some ill-informed voting public is an okay form of autocratic
governance because you’d slap a ‘democracy’ label on it, but it would result
in widespread expropriation of businesses by government officials who would
consequently wield immense power. The economy would collapse because the
incentive to outperform would be gone. There would be a brain drain from
private enterprise into government bureaucracy. This is the principle reason
why socialist and autocratic governments have relatively unproductive
economies. When The People’s Republic of China realized this and permitted
private ownership and enterprise, their economy took off as people found an
incentive to work harder...

~~~
dTal
>State sponsored enterprise is what happens in autocratic countries. At the
whim of the ruler enterprise is expropriated, whenever something is seen as
adequately tempting.

Oh boy, you are _not_ gonna like it when you hear about the "military
industrial complex".

>The economy would collapse because the incentive to outperform would be gone.

You speak as if huge chunks of our society haven't been socialized with great
results. You want to re-privatize the fire department, so they have more
incentive to put out fires? Privatize the police force, so they have more
incentive to stop crimes? It's not so straightforward as "private enterprise =
proper incentive structure" \- it's possible to engineer incentive structures
with better outcomes than the free market.

------
omrjml
I am curious how this would work in the UK. The UK national met service, Met
Office, has a free app, but has to show ads (not sure if there is a legal
requirement similar to this case). Its biggest competitor is the BBC weather
app which is also tax funded and is not allowed to show any ads. Up until a
couple of years ago BBC got its data from the Met Office anyway so the two
apps were basically showing the same data. However, now the BBC get its
weather information from a private weather company. Anti-competition laws and
tax-funded organisations is a complicated business!

------
Gabrielfair
I wonder if old versions of the app will still work. Assuming the endpoints
are not going to change. Also it seems that I can't find the app due to my
search region. Can someone provide a link to the app?

~~~
vmednis
You can find the links to their App on DWD Website German version[1] seems
like they've already implemented the ban. The warnings are free, but you have
to do an in-app purchase of 1.99 to see the forecasts, etc.

1\. [https://www.dwd.de/DE/service/dwd-
apps/dwdapps_node.html](https://www.dwd.de/DE/service/dwd-
apps/dwdapps_node.html)

------
gpvos
Same in the Netherlands: weather forecasts on public radio have since more
than ten years been provided by a private company instead of the national
weather service.

------
erikerikson
If this is a valid basis, should they be blocked from offering a website too?
If you don't think so, why? I can add a page to my home screen.

------
ryanseys
Reminds me of John Oliver's coverage of AccuWeather. [0]

[0]:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qMGn9T37eR8](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qMGn9T37eR8)

~~~
ConradKilroy
I was so about to mention that!

~~~
slenk
I will have to watch. I didn't realize this was all a thing

------
turbinerneiter
Jokes on them, I never knew about the DWD app before any just now bought it
because of this article.

------
rurban
And I immediately went and bought this DWD app for 2€, even if I get the same
sources and visualization from the free Windy app. The DWD app is just better,
and has a nice widget.

------
thecleaner
I mean this should come with a tax break. Since one benefit is gone and now we
have to rely on the bullshit service of this incompetent jackass of a company.

------
Anthony-G
This real bullshit – particularly given that the private companies base their
forecasts (indirectly) on the observations that national meteorological
services such as Deutsche Wetterdienst collect and provide for free as
scientific data. These observations are used as the input data for the same
Numeric Weather Prediction models that the commercial companies want to make
money from.

Neoliberals want to have their cake and eat it. Unfortunately, neoliberalism
is currently (over the past couple of decades, with a small stumble in 2008)
the dominant ideology within European politics.

------
HenryBemis
I remember an episode of Last Week Tonight from season 6 where in the USA some
pricks wanted to do the same on the free app of the respective gov department.
And Trump made the hear of that dept one of the founders of (was it??)
Weather.com so he can sabotage the app from the inside.

I don't remember the story, it was another brilliant example of how USA is
allowing large corporations soil on everything free and wants the sharks to
keep biting people's flesh (just like in healthcare, insurance, guns, etc.).

------
Jaxkr
This is very dumb and probably (ironically) hurts the business environment in
Germany

------
madsbuch
Court doesn't outlaw anything. They interpret laws. Lawmakers should change
these laws.

~~~
MauranKilom
The German legal system to a large degree has the extent and actual
interpretation of the written laws determined by case law. I don't know if
this is a landmark case, but if it is (which I would assume) then this is very
much outlawing this practice.

~~~
em-bee
that is not correct. germany does not use the common law system where case law
is binding, but the civil law system where each case is taken on its own
merrits against the law as it is written. past cases are only used as advice
to help interpret a new case, but judges have the freedom to not follow that
advice.

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IvanK_net
Is it even right to spend tax payers money for running a Weather Service, if
it can be handled by private companies?

~~~
jfk13
Can't you say that about almost anything.... Is it even right to spend
taxpayers' money for running a Health Service, if it can be handled by private
companies?

Oh, right -- that's the US. No thanks.

~~~
IvanK_net
The US is still one of the most rich countries. In many countries with "free
healthcare" you usually don't get anything without a bribe.

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Tomte
The law about the weather service clearly states that the weather service
should provide information about severe weather.

The decision isn't about what would be nice, it was a purely legalistic
question whether the law gave authorization for additional free services.
Which it clearly doesn't.

This decision wasn't surprising.

Edit: dislike this comment as much as you want. The commentary in legal
circles in Germany was exactly this. Nothing beats HN in legal expertise in a
foreign country!

~~~
Semaphor
I don't really see people complaining about the decision so much as about the
law which was the result of heavy lobbying.

