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Facebook's German suit; France on digital tax; Amazon Prime Video in Europe

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Facebook's German suit; France on digital tax; Amazon Prime Video in Europe

The Daily Dose LIVE returns to the City of London on Tuesday, Oct.1. Join us for a timely panel discussion on the vulnerabilities facing corporate Europe in a period of deep political, policy and economic uncertainty. Register today to secure your place at this popular breakfast event.

TOP NEWS

* Facebook Inc. has won a legal case against Germany's cartel authority Bundeskartellamt and is allowed to continue to use user data for its services and website with explicit consent from users, Handelsblatt reports. The cartel authority said it would appeal the decision.

* French President Emmanuel Macron announced at the G-7 summit that he will eliminate his country's digital tax once an international digital services policy is created. The Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development is working on a global policy agreement by 2020. Macron said France would repay the affected companies the difference between a French tax and a global policy once passed.

* Amazon.com Inc. struck a deal to make its Prime Video service available in France through Altice France SA's SFR, Variety reports. SFR subscribers will be able to watch Amazon Prime Video on their set-top boxes. Following the launch on SFR, Prime Video will be rolled out on Altice Europe-owned services in Portugal, Israel and the Dominican Republic.

PAN-EUROPEAN

* Sports streaming platform DAZN said it has acquired exclusive streaming rights to FIBA Basketball World Cup in Japan and Canada, as well as nonexclusive rights for the basketball tournament in Spain. Meanwhile, Telecom Italia SpA is in talks with DAZN parent company Perform Group Ltd. to add content from sports streaming service DAZN to its video-on-demand service TIMvision, Telecompaper reports, citing Il Sole 24 Ore. The telco targets to expand TIMvision's offering with live games from Italian soccer top-tier league Serie A, the rights for which are held by DAZN.

* ESPN Inc.'s streaming service ESPN Player began airing full coverage of this year's NCAA College Football games to users in Europe, the Middle East and Africa, as well as in Asian countries such as Japan and Singapore, Advanced Television reports.

* The EU Exit app is unavailable on iOS for citizens in the European Union who are looking to acquire U.K residency rights, London's Financial Times reports. The app's availability on Apple Inc.'s iPhones remains uncertain, which could potentially affect hundreds of thousands of EU citizens.

UK AND IRELAND

* The British Broadcasting Corp. is working on a voice assistant that will compete with Amazon's Alexa, London's The Guardian reports. To be called Beeb, the voice assistant, expected to be launched next year, is being developed to understand British accents.

* ITV PLC strategy and direct-to-consumer Director Julian Ashworth and the company's chief data officer, Karine Serfaty, have left the British broadcaster, The Sunday Telegraph reports. The two executives will not be replaced on the company's board.

* U.S. President Donald Trump and U.K. Prime Minister Boris Johnson met at the G-7 summit to discuss mutual global security concerns, including those relating to 5G and Huawei Technologies Co. Ltd., Reuters reports, citing a statement from the White House.

* The BBC3 has selected Youngest Media to produce six-episode documentary-reality series "HouseShare," according to a news release.

* British smartphone maker Bullitt Group Ltd. has laid off about 25% of its staff after the founders acquired the company back from Exponent Private Equity LLP, U.K.'s The Daily Telegraph reports. The private equity firm acquired about 63% stake in Bullitt for £100 million in 2017, the report said.

GERMANY, SWITZERLAND AND AUSTRIA

* Axel Springer SE said it accepted KKR & Co.'s tender offer for an additional 14.7% shares in the German company, making the private equity firm the largest shareholder, with 42.5% shares. KKR has also entered into agreements to acquire an additional stake of about 1.04% of Axel Springer's share capital and voting rights.

* Liberty Global PLC remains "fully committed" to closing the transaction to sell its UPC Schweiz to Sunrise Communications Group AG, according to a news release. Liberty Global said it has no plans or interest to amend the terms of the agreement with Sunrise.

* Mediengruppe RTL Deutschland GmbH has launched a new imaging campaign for its General Interest Portal RTL.de. The RTL Group SA unit said it will focus more on digital-out-of-home activities.

* Sporttotal.tv GmbH, a subsidiary of Sporttotal AG, announced the extension of a sponsoring contract with Hyundai Motor Deutschland GmbH. The contract will be extended until June 2021 provisionally.

* Sky Deutschland GmbH has decided to terminate Sky Media Managing Director Thomas Deissenberger who joined the company in 2015. Jaques Raynaud, the executive vice president for sports and advertising sales of the Sky Ltd. unit will be heading the company, reports Horizont.

FRANCE

* U.S.-based social media platforms including Facebook and Snapchat parent Snap Inc. delayed signing France's proposed "Charter for an Open, Free, and Safe Internet" during the G-7 summit, after company CEOs were pressured by U.S. President Donald Trump to not sign publicly, Reuters reports. The French government is hopeful that social media companies would sign a pledge to fight online hate speech.

* REDbySFR has launched a new mobile plan at €10 per month including calls, unlimited SMS/MMS and 40 GB of data, according to a news release.

* Radio station RTL and Le Parisien-Aujourd'hui are teaming up to produce joint coverage of major sports events. The collaboration will cover Euro 2020, Tokyo Olympics, Tour de France, starting off with coverage of Ligue 1 football in September.

NETHERLANDS, BELGIUM AND LUXEMBOURG

* Dutch public broadcaster NPO is considering stepping out of NLZIET, Nederlandsmedianieuws reports, citing a document. NLZIET, the joint on-demand platform of NPO, RTL Nederland and Talpa Network, is reportedly being described as a service that "has no great future for the Dutch media landscape."

* Dutch supervisor Reclame Code Commissie has started a campaign to explain bloggers and other influencers how to avoid surreptitious advertising. The RCC wants influencers to make clear if and when they promote a certain product.

NORDIC COUNTRIES

* Norwegian game production company Funcom SE said the release of the game "Conan Chop Chop", based on the "Conan The Barbarian IP", has been postponed from the originally planned September release to the first quarter of 2020. The game will be expanded to include Online Multiplayer.

* Telia Denmark said its joint project with energy company EWII A/S to deliver fiber connectivity in the Triangle region of Jutland, has launched. The Telia Co. ABs Danish unit's existing DSL customers will be automatically upgraded.

* Nordic Entertainment Group AB said it is releasing a new original medical drama series titled "First Responders," or "Åreakuten" in Swedish The show will premiere exclusively on Viaplay AB in 2020.

* Reliance Communications Ltd. asked Ericsson to refund 5.80 billion Indian rupees that the telco paid to the Swedish networking and telecommunications company, The Economic Times (India) reports. RCom said Ericsson had to be treated at par with other operational creditors and the money must be returned because the insolvency resolution process that Ericsson had initiated against RCom had resumed.

SOUTHERN EUROPE

* Vivendi SA said it filed a petition with the Court of Milan to issue an order allowing it to vote at the Mediaset SpA shareholders' meeting Sept. 4, following a refusal from the Italian broadcaster's board. The French media group intends to vote against the creation of Media for Europe NV, a pan-European holding company for Mediaset's assets in Italy and Spain.

* Telefónica SA Chairman and CEO José María Álvarez-Pallete López purchased 100,000 shares in the company for almost €600,000, Telecompaper reports, citing Expansión.

* Portugal is aiming to free up the 700 MHz band for 5G services within the January-June 2020 period, Advanced Television reports, citing the National Communications Authority. Altice Portugal SA's digital TV network operator unit MEO will make the changes starting in the Algarve region.

EASTERN EUROPE

* Polish soccer league Ekstraklasa rolled out its own streaming service dubbed Ekstraklasa.tv, Digital TV Europe reports. The over-the-top platform will stream live coverage of Ekstraklasa matches with Polish-language commentary, news and other related content in countries where the league's rights are not exclusively licensed.

* Huawei is in talks with the Russian Ministry of Communications to install local operating system Aurora on 360,000 of its tablets that will be used for Russia's population census in 2020, Reuters reports, citing sources.

* Russian internet company Mail.ru Group Ltd.teamed up with Proxima Capital Group to acquire a majority stake in car-sharing platform Youdrive Srl for an undisclosed sum, Telecompaper reports.

* Spi International Inc./FilmBox, through its affiliate Kino Polska TV SA, struck a content agreement with Paramount Worldwide Television Licensing & Distribution. The deal will allow SPI/FilmBox customers in central and eastern Europe to watch films produced by Viacom Inc. unit Paramount Pictures Corp., beginning in September.

* UPC Poland expanded the reach of its gigabit broadband network to five cities in Poland, with plans to launch the service in Sosnowiec town at the start of September, Telecompaper reports. The service is available to both retail and corporate subscribers.

* Russian search engine Yandex NV named Andrey Kholodny as its new head of production, Telecompaper reports, citing Comnews.ru. Kholodny joins the Russian search engine from satellite television operator Tricolor TV, where he was deputy CEO for the development of noncore services.

FEATURED NEWS

M&A Replay: Telenor completes DNA deal; Microsoft acquires open-source Java tool: Norwegian operator Telenor ASA completed the purchase of a 54% stake in Finnish telco DNA Oyj, while Microsoft Corp. acquired open-source Java performance tuning tool jClarity.

FEATURED RESEARCH

The Best Of: Kagan research and analysis, editor's picks: Presenting the editor's top picks from Kagan's exclusive research and analysis for the week ended Aug. 23.

Anne Freier, Amanda Kelly, Marieke Pijnappels and Esben Svendsen contributed to this report.

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