German court bans iPhone VoIP app Sipgate

sipgate

Good luck trying to use VoIP app Sipgate on your iPhone in Germany, since a court there just effectively banned it.

T-Mobile, which is Germany’s exclusive iPhone provider, had argued in court that the application encourages users to jailbreak their iPhone. By jailbreaking the iPhone, users would be violating T-Mobile’s terms and conditions, apparently punishable under pain of death.

Any German readers—look at me, pretending we have German readers—willing to shed some light on this? Like, does T-Mobile there have so much influence that it can convince courts to rule against some dopey iPhone app? Seems a bit harsh, no?

6 Comments/Pingbacks so far

 
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maloman (Who am I?)

well..

 
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whiskey (Who am I?)

Yeah… I mean:

“The very next morning, and as the most amazing of coincidences, everyone directly or indirectly involved with the case which supported T-Mobile and their aunts got a coupon to redeem their new iPhones. Those who opposed were tickled to death, except the lawyers, they were mocked to death”.

 
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maloman (Who am I?)

as a german reader currently living in the netherlands i must say.. germans still follow some leader ! Actually t-mobile is not very popular in the private cell fone business, only commercially.

 
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Relax (Who am I?)

From a German perspective: The court looks at the General Terms of Business of T-Mobile and terms of usage with the iPhone that every owner of a T-Mobile iPhone has accepted and agreed to. One of the arguments is that the VoIP software’s only goal and aim is to break the rule of not using the iPhone for VoIP. It’s almost as if eMule could only be used for piracy and therefore should be banned (I stated almost and this is only to help you to understand. But I am sure that some weirdo is going to jump onto it and write that this is not a very good example because …)

So it is rather a matter of very strict rules (and we Germans have a lot of it and love to think that we are always right because we imagine that there is a rule/law out there supporting our point-of-view). And a matter of live and learn. There is still a chance that this verdict is not the final one.

 
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Rob (Who am I?)

Before their ipo they were controlled by the government. So i guess they still have huge influence.

 
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Courts... (Who am I?)

I guess Germany as well as most countries suffers from judges that ar in principle well trained but severly lack in tech knowledge and understanding.

It is a general problem to transfer laws that where indended for the ’solid world old economy’ to the ‘ever changing new economy’.

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