Make participation in the competition dependent on advertising?

The Higher Regional Court of Frankfurt am Main recently ruled that in a case where participation in a competition is subject to consent to future e-mail advertising, a GDPR-compliant declaration of consent may be available.

Such a declaration of consent would still be sufficiently transparent even if eight co-sponsors were on the sponsors’ list within the framework of the consent list.

In doing so, the court had to deal with the definition of Art. 4 No. 11 GDPR, according to which consent is any freely given, specific, informed and unambiguous indication of the data subject’s wishes by which he or she, by a statement or by a clear affirmative action, signifies agreement to the processing of personal data relating to him or her.

The Court of Voluntary Action also dealt with:

‘Voluntary’ is synonymous with ‘without compulsion’ iSd of Article 2 lit. h RL 95/46/EC (both times “freely”). The person concerned must therefore have a real or free choice and must therefore be able to refuse or withdraw consent without suffering any disadvantages. In particular, no pressure must be exerted on the person concerned. A mere lure by promises of a perk, such as – as here – a participation in a competition, is not enough […]. According to the case law of the Senate, a voluntary event does not preclude the declaration of consent from being linked to participation in a competition. The consumer can and must decide for himself whether participation is “worth” disclosing his data.

Nevertheless, such declarations and information on sweepstakes should not be produced alone. There is still a threat of traps and therefore paid warnings. The user must always be able to see how and for what purposes his data is processed, which is why it must be clearly indicated for which individual advertising measures are given consent.

As far as the product reference is concerned, general paraphrases pre-formulated by the advertiser, such as that the consent extends to “financial services of all kinds”, are not sufficient.

Unfortunately, the court also does not state when there are too many advertising partners, which is why the transfer of data to an agency partner, for example, would probably be very problematic. In addition, the ruling does not provide any further insights into the problem of a possible prohibition of tying(see also this article).

The overall declaration must therefore be voluntary and transparent. However, this facilitates the offer of sweepstakes in the GDPR timekeeper, which is why the judgment (Az.: 6 U 6/19) offers a little legal certainty.

Author: Marian Härtel

Marian Härtel ist Rechtsanwalt und Fachanwalt für IT-Recht mit einer über 25-jährigen Erfahrung als Unternehmer und Berater in den Bereichen Games, E-Sport, Blockchain, SaaS und Künstliche Intelligenz. Seine Beratungsschwerpunkte umfassen neben dem IT-Recht insbesondere das Urheberrecht, Medienrecht sowie Wettbewerbsrecht. Er betreut schwerpunktmäßig Start-ups, Agenturen und Influencer, die er in strategischen Fragen, komplexen Vertragsangelegenheiten sowie bei Investitionsprojekten begleitet. Dabei zeichnet sich seine Beratung durch einen interdisziplinären Ansatz aus, der juristische Expertise und langjährige unternehmerische Erfahrung miteinander verbindet. Ziel seiner Tätigkeit ist stets, Mandanten praxisorientierte Lösungen anzubieten und rechtlich fundierte Unterstützung bei der Umsetzung innovativer Geschäftsmodelle zu gewährleisten.