At the time of his retirement, 66-year-old Peter Edelmann will have been with ZO Medien for almost 40 years, 19 of which as a member and eleven as Chairman of the Executive Board. Under his commercial and technical leadership, the company successfully implemented the major technological changes that became necessary in the media industry in the 1980s and strategically prepared for the future in good time with its pioneering three-media strategy. The complete concentration on the regional media market with the withdrawal from commercial printing, the investments in a regional news portal, the launch of the weekly newspapers "regio" and the takeover of the "Anzeiger von Uster" and only recently the "Glattaler" have made the company, which is on an extremely solid financial footing, the leading media house in the Zurich Oberland.

According to a press release, the Board of Directors has appointed Dani Sigel as Peter Edelmann's successor as of May 1, 2015. The 50-year-old Sigel knows the media scene from his previous professional career, both from a publishing and journalistic perspective. Most recently, he was Publishing Director and Managing Director of Liechtensteiner Volksblatt AG for twelve years. He has been Head of Subscription Services and Marketing at Zürcher Oberland Medien since January 1, 2014.

Picture: Zürcher Oberland Medien
 

Raiffeisen is the third-largest banking group in Switzerland. Thanks to the local roots of the more than 300 Raiffeisen banks, proximity is a fixed value in the business relationship between customer and bank. This proximity becomes a particular advantage when it comes to the everyday and also the special figures.

Every situation in life is shaped by numbers. Anyone who wants a strong partner at their side for these numbers can rely on the support of Raiffeisen. Because Raiffeisen is always there, where numbers are. This is the idea behind the new Raiffeisen campaign, which will be launched throughout Switzerland on September 29. Raiffeisen is promoting its comprehensive services in advertisements, posters, online banners, direct mailings and a TV spot at the image and product level with authentic images showing various stages in life. The snapshots from a life full of numbers are accompanied in the TV spot by the sounds of singer Katie Herzig singing the song "Wish you well".

Responsible at Raiffeisen Switzerland Cooperative: Oliver Niedermann (Head of Marketing); Jürg Moosmann (Head of Advertising & Brand Management); Fiorella Brülisauer (Head of Advertising Private Clients); Didier Graf (Project Manager Campaign). Responsible at Jung von Matt/Limmat: Alexander Jaggy (Executive Creative Direction); Maurus Zehnder, Christian Bobst (Creative Direction); Christina Wellnhofer (Art Direction); Maren Beck (Text); Aude Kohler (Graphics); Sarida Bossoni, Deborah Herzig (Art Buying); Thomas Steiner, Sebastian Suter, Andrea Walker, Rahel Zumbühl (Consulting); Marcel Langenegger (Directing), Filip Zumbrunn (Cinematography), Michela Trümpi (Chocolate Films), Katie Herzig (Song), Alex Kirschner (Audio Postproduction); Fergus Padel (Photography), X1 (Image Editing); Konnex (Media).
 

Westside has been the gold sponsor of 13-time Swiss ice hockey champion SC Bern since it opened in 2008. The intensive partnership is expressed succinctly on the first team's helmet advertising and, for the first time this year, in the face-off circle on the ice.

SCB players as mini 3D figures

After the life-size and real SCB cracks Tristan Scherwey, Marco Bührer, Pascal Berger and Beat Gerber took center stage for last year's campaign, it's their mini 3D life-size images in the new season. These limited edition, 20 centimeter tall action heroes are based on a 3D scan of the originals, are produced in Bern and are available exclusively at Westside. Republica has used them to create various ads in the SCB media as well as a Videotron spot for advertising in the stadium.

Just in time for the start of the season, Republica's newly designed sponsoring website for Westside also went live. This provides information under Westside.ch/sponsoring about all sponsoring partnerships of the shopping and experience center and presents news as well as fan offers, ticket competitions and much more.

Responsible at Republica: Chris Morgan, Mike Krüll (creative direction), Daniela Zehr (senior consulting), Janine Kabulka (consulting), Andrea Nehls (junior consulting), Bala Trachsel (overall responsibility), Boss Bern (producer 3D figures), MySign (programming website). Responsible at Westside: Lorenz Feller (Project Manager Sponsoring Migros Aare), Ludwig Nehls (Cen- ter Manager Westside).
 

A corresponding agreement has been concluded with the financial investor Central Group Media Holding, according to a media release on Friday. No details of the purchase price were given. "The acquisition of Profession.hu is an important step in expanding our digital portfolio," Mark Dean, CEO of Ringier Axel Springer Media, was quoted as saying. The closing of the transaction is subject to approval by the relevant antitrust authorities, he added. In addition, the Hungarian activities of Ringier and Axel Springer will be merged into Ringier Axel Springer Media in the coming weeks. Here, the approval of the relevant competition authorities has already been given, he said. (SDA)

How do you sustainably reduce littering? It's simple: you make it clear to children and young people that the next litter bin is never far away. This is exactly the idea behind the Litter Bin Trophy, which the Nudge agency Matter Gretener Lesch developed for the municipality of Thalwil. It took place in the run-up to the national Clean-Up Day on 12/13 September 2014 and invited the 6th classes of Thalwil's primary school buildings to find as many as possible of the litter bins set up on the territory of the municipality of Thalwil and marked with an individual code. The 6th grade that collected the most codes and posted them on the website Trophy.thalwil-littering.ch entered won an excursion.

The behavioral economic background for the successfully implemented competition is provided by the fact that littering is often justified by the fact that there was just no litter bin nearby. By mentally anchoring the omnipresence of litter bins, this excusing argument is invalidated and awareness of the violation of the social norms of "cleanliness" and "order" is restored - especially at events with large crowds, where the littering problem is particularly pronounced.

Thalwil local councillor Jan Rauch, divisional head of infrastructure: "We are convinced that by holding the litter bin trophy we have laid the foundations in a playful way for the change in behavior we want to see."

The action is part of the unusual initiative "Contract for a Clean Thalwil", for whose communication measures Matter Gretener Lesch has been responsible since 2013. Contrary to the strategy of fines and bans usually chosen by city and municipal governments to mitigate the littering problem, the Zurich lakeside community of Thalwil opted for a different approach. It sought talks with committed citizens and, together with them, developed an unusual idea: the "Contract for a Clean Thalwil". In concrete terms, everyone signs a contract pledging to stop throwing litter on the ground.

Responsible at the municipality of Thalwil: Gion Hagmann (Head of DLZ Infrastructure), Franziska Kummer (DLZ Infrastructure). Responsible at Matter Gretener Lesch: Marcus Gretener, Ulrich Stauffacher (consulting), Laura Haas (graphics); programming: Digitale Offensive.
 

Dietmar Dahmen presented his visions in the old cigarette factory under the title "this shit is happening". Patrick Comboeuf offered insights into the digital transformation at SBB, followed by Gregor Doser's latest figures on the steadily growing use of YouTube. According to Marco Boselli, 80 percent of 20 Minuten readers already use the mobile version and Lukas Speiser and Alan Frei explained to the participants that sex is selling better than ever - if you do it right. Afterwards, there was an opportunity to talk over hot dogs from Dr. Dog.

More pictures under this Link.
 

This will take place at the respective general meetings next year. Based on their letter of intent from 2012, the boards of SW Schweizer Werbung and PS Publicité Suisse initiated a process this summer to adapt the structures of the two umbrella organizations to the current requirements of the Swiss and international advertising market. Various working groups are currently exploring the possibilities and evaluating optimal association structures. The aim is to present the members of both associations, which are currently still legally independent, with a corresponding proposal for discussion at the 2015 general meetings. Filippo Lombardi, Member of the Council of States and President of SW Schweizer Werbung, is convinced that the time is ripe for a national association: "Especially today, when commercial communication is coming under increasing pressure and the scope for creative advertising is being restricted by numerous guidelines and bans, it is crucial that we move closer together and speak with one voice". François Besençon, President of PS Publicité Suisse, adds: "We are optimistic that our members will recognize the need to work together to achieve more for our industry than we can alone."

SW Schweizer Werbung is the umbrella organization for commercial communication. It represents the interests of advertising clients, contractors, media companies and agencies and represents almost 22,000 employees in Switzerland. PS Publicité Suisse was founded in 1928 and is the umbrella organization for commercial communication in French-speaking Switzerland. Together with SW Schweizer Werbung, it is committed to liberal advertising guidelines with all its resources and throughout the country.

The 32-year-old Robin Brühlmann has been working in the industry for around 5 years and has extensive expertise in the online sector. He was involved in the early days of Tilllate.com, worked for BAT and joined Cinergy through the Amiado Group, where he was most recently Deputy Sales Manager.

Image: Twitter.com

This was announced by the Aargau-based media company owned by publisher Peter Wanner. AZ Medien already held a majority stake in Dietschi. At an extraordinary general meeting, the majority of Dietschi's current board of directors announced their resignation, according to a press release, and the new board of directors includes publisher Wanner, Rudolf Steiner (chairman) and Philip Funk. AZ Medien made a purchase offer to the minority shareholders at the beginning of June. With a circulation of 14,800 copies, the Oltner Tagblatt has been published in the AZ Medienverbund Nordwestschweiz for many years.

Dietschi's Board of Directors had recommended that the minority shareholders accept AZ Medien's offer. Dietschi made a loss in the last financial year. According to the company, the reason for the red figures was depreciation on the newspaper printing press. The Oltner Tagblatt is printed by Dietschi itself. (SDA)

In 1919, Max Planck was convinced "that pure science is inherently unpopular". The "struggle with the brittle material" required a level of concentration that "must remain completely incomprehensible to any outsider". This may have been true in Planck's day. However, his prediction that it would always remain so proved to be wrong. "I would counter this with the title of a Spiegel article a few years ago, 'Science is sexy'," says Roman Klingler, Head of News and Media Office at ETH Zurich. "Today, different sections of the population are interested in science if it is communicated in an appealing, understandable and dialogical form. " Numerous new and popular science programs such as "Einstein, Quarks & Co" or "Galileo" prove him right.

How science became popular

On the part of publishers and editors-in-chief, the interest arose virulently in the 1960s in the context of the discussion about nuclear power plants, recalls Rosmarie Waldner, founder of the Swiss Club for Science Journalism (SKWJ) and (now retired) science journalist. A key trigger was the nuclear accident at Lucens in 1969. As a result, Waldner was offered her first job as a science journalist at the Tages-Anzeiger. The decision of the editor-in-chief at the time proved to be far-sighted. In the years that followed, there were also disputes on the political stage about genetic engineering and animal testing. The Neue Zürcher Zeitung (NZZ) had already launched a science supplement at the beginning of the century, but science reporting really became established in most daily newspapers at the end of the 1980s, says Waldner.

Journalists fear cutbacks

In view of the latest developments at Tamedia, the SKWJ now fears a trend in the opposite direction. After its own knowledge section disappeared from the SonntagsZeitung in the spring (it was integrated into the society section), the media company is now announcing a merger of several sections of the Tages-Anzeiger and SonntagsZeitung. In addition to society and culture, the knowledge section is also affected. The SKWJ is reacting to the two changes with an open letter to the Tamedia management. In it, SKWJ President Olivier Dessibourg calls on the media companies to provide the necessary resources for journalism "that is not content with being the mouthpiece of science". Although the new department will be "one of the largest in Switzerland with around ten jobs" according to Tamedia's press release, the science journalist from Le Temps is convinced that the merger is motivated by cost-cutting measures and means a de facto reduction. He also fears that Swiss science journalism will only speak with one voice on controversial topics instead of two, sometimes different ones.
 
Tamedia media spokesman Christoph Zimmer relativizes the fear of a dwindling diversity of opinion. The new knowledge section will have a co-head consisting of the two previous heads of the Tages-Anzeiger and SonntagsZeitung sections, Matthias Meili and Nik Walter (who recently won the 2014 Prix Média of the Academies of Sciences and Humanities for his article "Schlampereien im Tierlabor"). There are simply different reader needs for the two titles and these will also be taken into account in the future. Zimmer does not deny that the collaboration is intended to save money. However, he emphasizes that the merger is primarily intended to bundle existing strengths. "In view of the clear decline in advertising sales, an editorial team must use its resources in a very targeted manner in order to continue to offer a good product. The advantage of a merger is that we can retain our dossier expertise." The plan is for individual departments to work together, as has been the case in the sports section since Sonntags Zeitung was founded. There will be no redundancies as part of the current merger. However, Zimmer confirms that a member of staff will change departments within the SonntagsZeitung. In addition, one position will not be filled next year due to retirement.

When the SonntagsZeitung's own knowledge section was discontinued this spring, this had no consequences in terms of personnel. The topic is not given any less space within the overarching Society section. "However, if you don't have your own association, you have to fight for space," Dessibourg is convinced. For Waldner, there is a second important reason for having a separate section: "You should signal that so-called serious knowledge corresponds to a genuine public interest - society, on the other hand, also includes gossip stories or fashion trends." Except perhaps for very large newspapers or television programs, the science section is still just "nice to have" - despite the immense importance of research for Switzerland as a business location, Dessibourg notes. The SKWJ's accusations are "only comprehensible to a limited extent", disagrees Zimmer, as science is considered to be of great importance. They are meeting with growing reader interest. In particular, topics at the interface between ethics and science are in demand. "Socio-political discussions that go beyond the mere communication of science will certainly increase in the coming years." 

Research depends on acceptance

Science journalism no longer leads a niche existence in Switzerland. However, it is confronted with a scientific community that has much more extensive financial resources at its disposal than it did a few decades ago. Dessibourg, who worked for the press service of the Swiss National Science Foundation (SNSF) between July 2002 and April 2004, was part of a team of eight at the time, which has since been increased to around 14 employees. There are many reasons for this. "There is a battle for visibility between the individual educational institutions. It now also plays a decisive role in the allocation of funding," says Dessibourg. Waldner emphasizes that the pharmaceutical and agro-industry upgraded their PR departments when opposition to genetic engineering arose. "Industry and universities feel compelled to create acceptance for their own research." Many universities have a wide range of print and online products for this purpose. ETH Zurich operates its own science blog in addition to a news platform. Researchers have been reporting on climate change on the ETH climate blog since 2009. Last fall, the portal was renamed Zukunftsblog and now highlights various sustainability topics ranging from climate and sustainable urban development to global nutrition. "The blog offers researchers the opportunity to write about their core competencies in a personal and credible way. The sender is absolutely transparent," says Klingler. The portal attracts the attention of specialist journalists and is an important source of ideas for the media.

For Waldner, the future blog is "well done, but pure PR". The negative aspects of research are never pointed out on such a portal. "We are aware that we cannot and do not want to play the same role as a journalist," says Klingler. However, in view of politicians and taxpayers who want to know whether the money spent is being invested wisely, the achievements in research and teaching must be made visible. Public events such as the Science City meeting point or Scientifica would enable direct discussions between students and researchers and the people of Zurich. "A university does not operate in a vacuum and is dependent on social acceptance," Klingler is convinced.

For Waldner, the population's need for co-determination is linked not least to the huge explosion of science. "The centuries-old authorities are crumbling because many people today have a scientific background and are therefore observing the research process more critically." At universities, too, you now encounter experts who are divided about nuclear energy or genetic engineering. Dessibourg is convinced that it is possible to point out the relevant aspects of research to a reader from outside the field. This was the case, for example, with the 1998 vote on the 1993 genetic protection initiative. In contrast to genetic research, however, there are other areas of science on which no one would call for a referendum because they are still in the dark for the population.

Simone Isliker

What Matthias Saner designs is simple, pleasing to the eye, classic and very white. And yet modern and surprising. And it works - which is particularly important, because Saner is a specialist for online, mobile and apps. And he's an expert at bringing these channels and print under one design umbrella without losing sight of the brand characteristics of the product that have been handed down for a long time. It's important to Saner that design doesn't become an end in itself: "Particularly in editorial design, I think it's central that you show off the content and don't just tinker with pretty buttons and great color surfaces," he says. "As a designer, I am first and foremost in the service of the reader, because only if the newspaper has a lot of readers can you sell it, can you sell advertising. Design is not an art, but enables the best use of an offer. Everything has to work well - and it still has to look beautiful." The many positive to euphoric reactions to his Tagi redesign prove that Saner succeeds in turning this claim into reality (see quotes above right).

Content in focus

"Re-designing a title is often also about looking more premium than before, especially if a paywall is to be introduced," explains Saner. "In addition, the reading experience is to be enhanced and the brand strengthened once again with a view to convergent editorial. With Tagi, for example, we wanted to create a single product across the different channels so that the user always recognizes 'his Tagi' and feels a common DNA, no matter on which device he reads the newspaper." In selecting fonts and colors, Saner therefore drew heavily on the design of the print edition; in turn, the print version was supplemented with design elements that are important for online. "The biggest challenge is adapting the design to the different screen formats - desktop, mobile and pad - and the user behavior that varies from surface to surface," Saner points out. "One person looks in once a day, the other several times a day during coffee breaks. We need to pick up all these readers equally. The bracket is a visual language across all devices."

While newspapers and magazines are currently taking medium to big leaps to stay ahead in the battle for mobile readership, advertising is lagging woefully behind. "I'm amazed at how slowly the advertising market is evolving in the digital space," Saner says. "Advertisers seem to think traditional display advertising is enough. Advertising is quite often distracting online, interactivity is limited to me clicking away on the banners, and they try to lure me to another website to generate clicks. At the same time, you could tell so much and do exciting things on the spot."

Mens sana in corpore Saner

After graduating from high school in 1990, Matthias Saner started studying computer science. But he quickly realized that only zeros and ones were not my world. He switched to a graphics course at what was then the School of Design, now the ZHdK. After graduating, he worked for a year in a graphics office in Hong Kong, then founded Popeye, a web design company in Zurich with three partners. "At the end of the 1990s, the Internet became interesting for graphics and design, and anyone who understood a little about it was immediately good at business," the designer recalls. In 2003, Saner's liaison with the Tagi began: he initially joined as part-time art director for the digital area, and with the launch of Newsnet, he concentrated on the newspaper full-time. Nevertheless, he constantly toyed with the idea of becoming self-employed again. In 2012, the time has come: Saner founds Sanerstudio. "As art director at Tagi /Newsnet, I was primarily concerned with developing new things as well as renewing and improving existing ones and adapting them to changing needs," says Saner. "Then, when I started my own business, I immediately got the mandate for a redesign of the Tagesanzeiger, which was launched together with the paywall." Many major Swiss newspaper and magazine titles have already been given a new or fresher look on Saner's desk, including Handelszeitung and Bilanz. But since Saner redesigned the print and online presence of the Tagesanzeiger as well as its mobile and pad version, including apps, within a year, he has become one of the most sought-after editorial designers in the country. Saner himself credits the conception and implementation of the first Tagi iPad app as his biggest professional highlight to date. He is currently working on the roll-out of the paywall for the various Tamedia titles. Saner also has an app for 20 Minuten and a project for Annabelle on the table, and he is developing various educational apps together with a photographer and a speech therapist. In these works, too, you can expect Saner's typical signature: calm, white, functions support the content, design strengthens the brand.

Hands for the future

Those who design online, mobile and apps need not only a sense of whether applications work, but also how they might work in the future - in other words, they need a knack for what's coming. Saner's work benefits from his affinity for technology: although he himself works visually, he also understands the work of programmers, and can assess which functions of a website or app are useful and possible and which are not. "I find dynamic user interfaces with animated content particularly exciting, where the next page isn't just there when I press a button, but the page builds up before my eyes," the designer explains. "Something like that, at its best, is not just a cool effect, but makes the architecture of a page more understandable. And it's quite intuitive, so you can go back even more with the design. Things like that make an interface much better and more attractive."

When Saner gives shape to new design ideas, he is surprisingly offline: "I then draw a lot on Post-its," he reveals. "The little yellow pieces of paper force you to sketch your thoughts in a concentrated way in a very small space." With the complex interlocks in the digital space, it's easy to run the risk of losing track. So step-by-step conceptualization and visualization is called for. "I always try out my idea very quickly to see if it works," Saner says. "Today, you no longer develop a design that is implemented by programmers afterwards; today, designers and programmers work hand in hand." Saner works closely with his respective client's art director and development team. In general, he does not manage his huge projects on his own. He employs a designer and is not averse to further growth: "We have a lot to do and could still use support," says Saner. "But it's not my goal to make Sanerstudio really big really fast." Despite his success, the designer has remained modest. He is happy when his client trusts him, gives him great freedom for his work and, above all, the necessary time: "Something becomes good and fun when you can develop it until it really works - which doesn't have to mean that it doesn't happen quickly. Then it's great to see how many people use the web and mobile sites and apps we've designed every day. For me, that's the greatest praise and the nicest confirmation of my work." As a boy, Matthias Saner wanted to be an astronaut. He has definitely succeeded in taking off without losing his grip on the ground.

Anne-Friederike Heinrich

What is the right to be forgotten?

The question is how society should deal with the new development that, thanks to databases and search engines, events from an individual's life that occurred long ago can be retrieved at any time and without great effort. The right to be forgotten is intended to limit this.

How did the verdict come about?

It is about Google, the daily newspaper La Vanguardia in Barcelona and about the Spaniard Mario Costeja. The latter, a court expert for manuscripts in Barcelona by profession, apparently came across an official notice with his name six years ago while Googling his ego, which had appeared in the editions of January 19 and March 9, 1998. It was about the forced auction of a 90-square-meter plot of land in the Catalan town of Sant Feliu de Llobregat that belonged to Costeja and his then-wife. Because La Vanguardia had digitized all the issues since its first publication in 1881 in 2008 and made them freely accessible on the Internet, ten years later this note appeared at the top of the search results list on Google, which Costeja found so disturbing that he went to several instances to try to ban La Vanguradia and Google from publishing it. When the case ended up at the Audiencia Nacional, one of Spain's highest courts, in 2010, the judges there were at a loss and consulted the European Court of Justice (ECJ) with a "preliminary ruling. The ruling, which is binding on the courts of the EU member states, has been available since May 13 of this year.

What exactly is the ruling about?

This is about balancing the right to privacy and data protection in European law with the legitimate interest of the public to have unhindered access to such information. (Both civil rights are included in the European Convention on Human Rights). It distinguishes between public and private persons, and it is concerned with search engines in general, not just Google, but anyone who processes personal data. Namely, the court affirms that there is a "right to be forgotten" for private individuals on the Internet. In general, according to the court, the protected rights of the data subject outweigh the interest of Internet users to be freely informed and the economic interests of search engine operators.

What is remarkable about the verdict?

The 13-member panel of judges, who with an average age of 61.4 can hardly be classified as Internet-savvy, thus set unexpectedly clear accents. A year earlier, the Advocate General, Niilo Jääskinen of Finland, had submitted his (non-binding) motions to the court and reached completely different conclusions on various aspects. He mentioned several times that the current law, the EU Directive 95/46/EC, dates from the pre-Internet era (it is to be replaced by a new "General Data Protection Regulation" later this year). Because Google processes personal data, but does so by means of computer code rather than personally, the search engine cannot be held responsible for the processing. Unlike the court, which did not address freedom of expression, Jääskinen took issue with this, and he advised against leaving it to search engine providers to balance conflicting interests in individual cases. And he predicted: "There would be an interference with the freedom of expression of the website author, who would be left without adequate legal protection in such a case, since an unregulated procedure for reporting and removal would be a private law matter between the person concerned and the search engine service provider. This would amount to censorship of the content published by the author by a private party."

How was the verdict received?

American and British commentators in particular see the ruling as a dangerous step toward censorship. Americans have traditionally placed the right to free speech higher than the protection of personal data. The fact that Europe, of all places, with its past, is moving in this direction was met with incomprehension in many quarters, and one even sneered that the big winners of the ruling are French ministers who want to forget the name of their last mistress. A committee of the British House of Lords sharply criticized the ruling in an expert opinion, concluding that it was "unworkable" and "misguided in its basic assumptions.

How will the ruling be implemented?

In mid-July, Google announced that it had received 91,000 deletion requests so far, demanding the removal of 328,000 links. (A document is not removed in general, but only if the respective name belongs to the search terms). About half of the deletion requests have been granted, and additional information has been requested in another 15 percent. There are voices that think Google is acting too generously and thus wants to address the difficult implementation of the ruling. There is also criticism of the fact that Google, as a private company, and not an official or judicial body, examines and decides on the requests. Meanwhile, European data protectionists criticize the fact that Google informs the respective website operators about the deletion and only carries it out on Google pages in Europe (and not worldwide). The data protection authorities are working to regulate the removal of search results in more detail in a guideline. Google, for its part, has set up an expert advisory board to discuss the implementation of the ruling in public meetings in various European capitals. Other Internet players, such as Microsoft with its Bing search engine and Yahoo, are also in the process of aligning themselves with the new case law in order to also process deletion requests in the future.

What is this to do with us in Switzerland, since European judgments are not legally valid in Switzerland?

Although the ruling has no legal force in Switzerland, Google has decided to proceed in the same way in all EU and EFTA countries. Thus, by July, 1645 Swiss nationals had submitted requests to Google for the deletion of 7085 websites.

What is the legal situation in our country?

Privacy is held in high regard here (keyword: banking secrecy), and when it comes to the right to be forgotten, one can easily get the impression that this is a Swiss invention due to the extensive and decades-old practice of the Federal Supreme Court and the corresponding laws. It is therefore not surprising that the federal data protection expert Hanspeter Thür predicts in view of the ECJ ruling that Swiss jurisdiction would probably react similarly in a comparable case. For Swiss publishers, for example, a Lausanne ruling from 1996 is groundbreaking, in which even truthful reporting about a past prison sentence was classified as violating personal rights and therefore not permissible.

To what extent does the right to be forgotten affect Swiss media companies?

Requests for deletion, as they are now arriving in droves at Google as a result of the judge's ruling, are a long-established right in this country, albeit one that is (so far) rarely used. A survey among the publishing houses Tamedia, NZZ and Ringier gives the following picture: According to company spokesman Christoph Zimmer, Tamedia receives around two dozen deletion and anonymization requests per month in the publishing sector (which also includes Tilllate.com). But only in "a handful of cases per year" is anonymization justified on the basis of the right to be forgotten. According to Secretary General Hanspeter Kellermüller, the NZZ media group receives 10 to 15 requests per year in connection with the right to be forgotten in the publishing sector (i.e., not including Moneyhouse, for example) and another 20 or so requests relating to other violations of personality. According to Chief Communications Officer Edi Estermann, Ringier moves in the same order of magnitude: "We are talking about an average of less than 20 requests of this kind per year across all titles. Most of them concern the titles of the Blick Group." At Ringier, the deletion then usually also affects the Swiss media database SMD. Meanwhile, Tamedia Zimmer states that deletion from the SMD only takes place "if we are legally obligated to do so.

Is link deletion becoming the new popular sport?

Although the European ruling has no direct legal significance for Switzerland, Zimmer reports, it has "nevertheless led to a significant increase in requests for deletion and anonymization". Kellermüller, too, reports that the number of requests has increased recently, primarily addressing discoverability on the Internet, and he has observed that such requests are increasingly coming from Germany as well.

How has the Swiss media industry reacted to the ruling so far?

So far, journalists and publishers, as well as the corresponding associations, have remained silent on the ruling of the European Supreme Court, which also consigns journalistic contributions to oblivion. As research by Werbewoche revealed, the effects of the ECJ ruling are being followed and discussed, and opinions are still being formed. The general view is that, since current reporting is not directly affected, there is no conflict with press freedom. The situation is different when it comes to press archives: At the Association of Swiss Media, for example, director Verena Vonarburg emphasizes: "Archives must also be able to be maintained in the Internet age." It is "very important" that the right to be forgotten cannot be claimed when it comes to archives (such as SMD) that are not freely accessible to the public, but which are indispensable for research, background reports, and even the writing of history.

Christoph J. Walther