Court prohibits German Health Ministry's cooperation with Google
Feb 11, 2021
Berlin (Germany), February 11: The regional court of Munich on Wednesday provisionally prohibited a cooperation arrangement between Germany's Ministry of Health (BMG) and U.S. technology company Google. The ministry's aim was to position its new health website as high in Google's web search rankings as possible.
However, the ministry's deal with Google would "restrict competition in the market for healthcare websites," said the court's presiding judge Gesa Lutz in a statement.
The ministry's national health website was "not a purely sovereign activity, but an economic one that must be examined on the basis of antitrust law," the judge said.
The ministry's main ambition was for Google search to prominently display its advice on a range of health issues, from influenza treatment to migraines, and to offer a link to the ministry's website.
The complaint was filed by NetDoktor.de health website, a subsidiary of the Hubert Burda Media Group. The court noted that NetDoktor.de was particularly dependent on achieving good visibility among the Google search results, since around 90 percent of users found it via Google searches.
"This visibility is greatly reduced because the (ministry's) information boxes distract and attract users' attention by drawing them away from the overall search results," Lutz explained.
Minister of Health Jens Spahn announced the collaboration deal with Google in November last year. The COVID-19 pandemic showed how "important reputable health information is," Spahn said at the time.
Source: Xinhua
