CZECH REPUBLIC Law and Practice Contributed by: Irena Lišková, Ladislav Mádl, Eliška Říhová and Adam Vymazal, Randl Partners
mercial practices, including advertising directly encouraging children to purchase the marketed goods or services or to persuade an adult person to pur - chase them on their behalf. According to the GDPR, children merit specific pro - tection with regard to their personal data, as they may be less aware of the risks, consequences, safeguards and their rights in relation to the processing of per - sonal data. 3.3 Dark Patterns The term “dark practices” is not recognised by the Czech legislation, but dark practices fall within the scope of the provisions on unfair competition under the Consumer Protection Act. Furthermore, these practices may, in some cases, violate competition law, data protection law or even result in criminal liability in the most severe cases. As the Czech Republic is a member of the EU, it is also subject to EU law, with the EU Digital Services Act being the most important piece of legislation in this field. Other EU regulations are also indirectly relevant, such as the GDPR (eg, their use in obtaining consent to process personal data), the Digital Markets Act, and the Unfair Commercial Practices Directive, etc. 3.4 Sponsor Identification and Branded Content Specific rules are in place for sponsorship in radio, TV and on-demand audiovisual services. These include the obligation to clearly identify each wholly or partial - ly sponsored programme at the beginning and either during or at the end of the programme, with the name or title, visual symbol (logo) or other identifying mark of the sponsor. Electronic commercial communica - tions must include information about the identity of the person on whose behalf the communication is made. There are also certain soft-law rules in place, for example: • there is a separate section in the Code of Adver - tising Practice dedicated to the identification of advertisements that resemble editorial content; and • the AIP’s Code of Ethics for Taking Over and Use of Third-Party Content on the Internet ‒ in par -
ticular, its supplement called “Rules for Native Advertising” ‒ which includes basic rules for in-feed units. 3.5 Special Rules for Native Advertising Under Czech law, native advertising is not specifically regulated. Therefore, the general advertising stand - ards and self-regulatory practices apply. The AIP’s Rules for Native Advertising cover in-feed units as follows. • The newsroom may participate only in creating its own content or content whose topic is determined by an external advertiser financially supporting such media, but the creation itself is carried out by the newsroom (sponsored content). • To maintain the transparency and credibility of the media, it is necessary to distinguish any type of PR article or sponsored content that may otherwise look like it was produced by the newsroom – using labels such as “commercial attachment”, “spon - sored” etc. These rules are also accompanied by several model cases. Under Czech law (the Civil Code), comparative adver - tising is defined as advertising that directly or indi - rectly identifies another competitor or its products or services. It is permitted if it meets the following conditions: • it is not misleading; • it compares products or services that satisfy the same need or are intended for the same purpose; • it objectively compares one or several relevant, important, verifiable and typical properties of goods or services, including price; • it compares products with a designation of origin only to products with the same designation; 4. Comparative Advertising and Ambush Marketing 4.1 Specific Rules or Restrictions
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