AOL Deutschland was reprimanded last week after a German court ruled it was making misleading pricing claims. Courts in Hamburg and Cologne ruled that AOL could no longer use the phrase Internet zum Festpreis (Fixed Price Internet) on TV and in newspapers, as it could mislead consumers. The complaints were brought by competitor internet services providers TalkLine GmbH and T-Online, owned by Deutsche Telekom AG.
In an attempt to build up its 900,000 subscriber base against T-Online’s three million, AOL recently introduced what it called a flat-rate package. Previously, users paid AOL for the number of hours they spent online per month, in addition to paying the metered dialup costs to a telephone company. At the end of August the ISP said it was cutting its monthly fees to DM9.95 ($5.30) and giving its subscribers cheap dialup of 3.9 pfennigs ($0.02) per minute.
The courts found the Fixed Price Internet claim was misleading, despite AOL’s protestations that all advertising carried small print explaining the dialup costs. The ISP has now changed its slogan to Internetnutzung ohne Limit (Internet Access without Limits).
