The popular PAY-TV provider "Sky" was reprimanded by the Regional Court of Munich I in a ruling dated 16.11.2023 (Ref.: 12 O 4127/23) due to the termination option on its website.
Facts
The consumer association Verbraucherzentrale Nordrhein-Westfalen e.V. had filed a lawsuit because, in its opinion, the termination button for contracts on the website https://www.sky.de was not clearly legible and not directly and easily accessible for consumers, contrary to the requirements of Sections 312k (2) sentence 2 BGB and 312k (2) sentence 4 BGB.
This button was designed as follows: As soon as the website https://www.sky.de was called up, a button at the bottom of the screen was labeled"Show more links". This button was in gray letters on a white background. After clicking on "Show morelinks", links to the topics "Offers & packages", "Top entertainment", "Live sport","Sky categories", "Companies", "Other platforms", "Info" and"Quick access" appeared at the top of the website. These were highlighted in bold.
Below these 58 links in total, there was a button in smaller, gray lettering on the bottom right-hand side of the website with the words "Cancel". This line also contained the buttons "Imprint", "Contact", "Privacy & Cookies", "Terms of Use" and "Terms and Conditions" formatted in the same way.
Decision
The Regional Court of Munich I agreed with the opinion of the North Rhine-Westphalia Consumer Advice Center and affirmed the injunctive relief sought pursuant to Section 2 (2) No. 1 UKlaG in conjunction with Section 312k BGB. § Section 312k BGB.
According to the Regional Court of Munich I, the lack of legibility of the cancellation button in accordance with Section 312k (2) sentence 2 BGB resulted from the fact that it was written smaller than the other continuous text on the website. The grey color of the cancellation button was also difficult to distinguish from the white background of the website. In particular, the website was generally not completely gray, but rather had colored images and other offer buttons were also highlighted in blue and thus highlighted in color.
It also affirmed a violation of Section 312k (2) sentence 4 BGB, according to which buttons and the confirmation page must be permanently available and directly and easily accessible. The Munich I Regional Court justified this by stating that, on the one hand, you first have to press the"Show more links" button and then the button for canceling the contract is located at the bottom of the page among the 58 links, which deal with completely different topics.
The court also states that the principles of the two-click solution, which are applicable to the design of the legal notice, are not applicable to Section 312k (2) sentence 4 BGB, as according to the purpose of Section 312k BGB, the consumer must be able to terminate a legal transaction that is designed for a permanent legal relationship just as easily as they were able to conclude the contract. However, a termination via two clicks alone does not do justice to this meaning and purpose, but rather the placement of the termination must also be taken into account.
In particular, Sky's argument that it is possible to search for the termination option via the "magnifying glass" symbol, the "Sky Chat" or the "Help" symbol and to terminate the contract by logging into the user account shows that there may be consumers who will not find the termination button behind the "Show more links" button and are reliant on other alternatives, which underlines a violation of Section 312k (2) sentence 4 BGB. If alternative termination options were permitted, the very purpose of Section 312k (2) BGB would be thwarted.
Outlook
Almost every consumer is familiar with the difficulties that often arise when terminating contracts in any sector. It therefore remains to be seen whether other companies will be persuaded to change their corporate websites in the future, particularly by the consumer advice center, and establish an easier way to terminate contracts on their websites.
