German ticketing company CTS Eventim has played down the significance of a recent court ruling over the way it promotes ticket insurance on its platform.
Consumer rights organisation VZBV last week welcomed that ruling, stating that the Higher Regional Court of Bamberg had prohibited Eventim from promoting ticket insurance in “a manipulative and misleading manner”. But the ticketing firm stresses that the ruling relates to very specific wording, rather than the principle of promoting the insurance option, plus it plans to appeal the judgement.
It was VZBV that pursued legal action against Eventim, arguing that the way its ticket insurance was promoted to customers breached the European Union’s Digital Services Act.
Lots of ticketing platforms offer insurance, so that the ticket buyer can get a full refund if, for some reason, they can’t attend a show. However, VZBV says that Eventim’s platform not only gave the insurance option prominence during the final stage of the ticket buying process, but if the customer didn’t add it to their purchase they then had to deal with another pop-up window before making payment.
That pop-up window strongly recommended that the customer buy ticket insurance “to avoid the hassle and frustration of missing an event”. In order to decline the insurance offer, the customer then had to click a button that said “I bear the full risk”. This language, argues VZBV, was manipulative.
The organisation’s Jana Brockfeld says, “Many companies design their websites in such a manipulative way that consumers are pressured into making decisions they would not otherwise make. Such design tricks, also known as dark patterns, are prohibited in the EU under the Digital Services Act, but remain a constant nuisance online”.
A statement from VZBV explains that the German court agreed with its view that “Eventim’s repeated offer of ticket insurance violated the EU's Digital Services Act”. Under EU and German law, it adds, “providers are prohibited from designing their websites in such a way that users are deceived, manipulated or otherwise significantly impaired or hindered in their freedom of choice”.
The court agreed, VZBV says, that “this was precisely what Eventim had done here”. The pop-up window, the language used and the fact the button to decline purchasing insurance said “I bear the full risk” together “crossed the threshold for undue influence - a scenario was created that resulted in fear of a total loss of the purchase price and which had a threatening effect”.
The consumer rights group also argued that Eventim wasn’t sufficiently clear that, if a show was cancelled, ticket buyers would be automatically due a refund, so in that scenario insurance is not required.
Although VZBV got a partial win in court, the organisation’s statement concedes that the judge rejected its request to prohibit Eventim entirely from promoting insurance during the checkout process on its platform.
“Although the offer is presented prominently and is more eye-catching than the text for the selected ticket”, it says, “it is readily apparent that the insurance is optional and by no means mandatory for purchasing the ticket”. Therefore, the court decided, pushing insurance at the final stage does not “significantly impair users’ freedom of choice”.
Responding to VZBV’s statement, Eventim told IQ that the recent court ruling is not yet final and, anyway, it intends to appeal.
A spokesperson then added, “We would also like to point out that the judgement is directed solely against the specific wording currently used in the pop-up in the event of rejection of ticket insurance, but not against the use of a pop-up as a new request per se, or against its other design”.