Instagram #WERBUNG Lawsuit
Donation protected
#WERBUNG = ADVERTISING
A phenomenon on Instagram, as you can see in almost every single post by German Instagrammers
It should indicate whenever a posting includes paid advertising, to make it clear for the Instagram user.
But how can it be clear if all the sudden every single post says advertising?
The reason for this phenomenon is an organization that claims to protect their members and is sending letters to everyone who is tagging other Instagram profiles and doesnt say their posts are advertising. In these letters, they are asking for a fee and force the people to sign a contract where the people confirm to follow the guidelines of this organization. The first fee is about 180€ but the contract also includes a penalty fee in case the people who signed it, do a mistake - in this case, this organization is charging 5.100€ for every single mistake!!!
This organization doesnt care if the people have received something in return for tagging other Instagram profiles because, in their eye, the simple tagging of someone is already advertising and should be stated as such in every single post that has tags and links in it.
I have been making it clear every time I have tagged companies that are my YouTube sponsors, or whenever I have done a paid post, by following the German laws. In fact, I have contacted a lawyer for a consultation and he has confirmed my behaviour to be correct.
As soon as I have reached the 50K milestone on Instagram, my profile must have showed up on the radar of this organization and they have sent me such letter. Asking me to pay them a 180€ fee because I haven't used the word WERBUNG (advertising) at the beginning of a handful of posts that included tags to other Instagram profiles. And of course, they also asked me to sign the ridiculous contract and to commit to paying 5.100€ in case I will ever do this mistake again.
- They were not interested whether I have received something for these tags or not
- In fact, one of the tags was a good friend and colleague of mine
I refused to pay the fee as I felt there was nothing I have done wrong and also to sign their contract.
As a reaction, they started a lawsuit against me!
Please support me through this GoFundMe campaign and share it with as many Aquascapers as possible, so that in the first place everyone knows why every German Instagrammer is using WERBUNG at the beginning of their posts and also to support me in this fight for the right and truth.
I sincerely hope many of you will support this, in case I'm going to win the process, 100% of the money is going to be refunded to you!
I'm not going to keep any single penny of it.
I promise to keep you updated about the further steps of the lawsuit.
Thank you
Jurijs
UPDATE January 2020:
The fight is not over!
Meanwhile I have received several notifications from GoFundMe team about complains from people who have donated about the truth of this campaign, asking me to confirm a bunch of things. This is a little bit disappointing, that my own supporters don't trust me anymore.. For this reason I have to update the campaign description and answer to following questions (send to me by GoFundMe):
1. I have to specify the reason for this campaign
- As described in the original campaign and video, I have been sued by an organization that claims I haven't declared that some of my instagram posts include advertising. Which is not true. Well before they have sued me, I have contacted a lawyer and interviewed him for a podcast about this topic to make sure I act according to the law. Which I have done. Whenever I have been paid to promote product, I have added the German term "Werbung" that means advertising to my posts. In regular posts, where I haven't received any financial benefit from the accounts I have tagged, I haven't used such term - to make it clear to my audience that this particular post is purely my personal opinion and doesn't include any paid advertising. This strategy of diversifying between paid advertising and regular posts and using or not using the term "werbung" is what my lawyer has advised me to do. And if you think about it, it's the only way to do it correct, because if I declare everything is advertising, no one will know which posts include advertising and which do not. After some time no one will pay attention to this declaration any more and the viewer has no benefit from it. The opposite is the case. By declaring everything is advertising, the viewer cannot identify the posts that include REAL advertising and is basically fooled, instead of having a true and non biased information. As a result of being sued for doing nothing wrong, I decided to fight against them in the court, which always has a chance of loosing and being faced with the expanses. To protect my self, I have started this fundraiser. In the Original description I made the promise to refund the money to the donators in case I win the court case and don't need the money my self.
2. My relationship to beneficiary of this campaign or to whom I intend to donate the money
- I'm the beneficiary of this campaign. The purpose of the fundraiser is to have some financial deposit for the worst case scenario. In case I win the lawsuit and it's finally over, I won't need the money. All expanses will be covered by the organization who has started it all. In this case I'm willing to either refund the money to the donators (supporters of this campaign) or to keep it simple, to donate the money to a charity organization that will be determined by the supporters via a voting in the comments of this campaign. After communicating with the GoFundMe team, I was told they can help refund the money to all who have donated. So this my favored scenario. But first, the lawsuit has to be completely over with no more extra rounds etc.
3. Further information that will confirm the authenticity of this campaign
- To further confirm the authenticity of this campaign, you can find the last invitation from the court for March 2020 in the separate Update post. Thank you everyone who has supported me so far! I really hope round 3 is going to be the last round. And in case it goes well and it's finally over after this, I will work with GoFundMe team on a solution to return the money to everyone who has donated.
__
In case you don't do it already, follow me on Social Media
☞ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/juri_js/
A phenomenon on Instagram, as you can see in almost every single post by German Instagrammers
It should indicate whenever a posting includes paid advertising, to make it clear for the Instagram user.
But how can it be clear if all the sudden every single post says advertising?
The reason for this phenomenon is an organization that claims to protect their members and is sending letters to everyone who is tagging other Instagram profiles and doesnt say their posts are advertising. In these letters, they are asking for a fee and force the people to sign a contract where the people confirm to follow the guidelines of this organization. The first fee is about 180€ but the contract also includes a penalty fee in case the people who signed it, do a mistake - in this case, this organization is charging 5.100€ for every single mistake!!!
This organization doesnt care if the people have received something in return for tagging other Instagram profiles because, in their eye, the simple tagging of someone is already advertising and should be stated as such in every single post that has tags and links in it.
I have been making it clear every time I have tagged companies that are my YouTube sponsors, or whenever I have done a paid post, by following the German laws. In fact, I have contacted a lawyer for a consultation and he has confirmed my behaviour to be correct.
As soon as I have reached the 50K milestone on Instagram, my profile must have showed up on the radar of this organization and they have sent me such letter. Asking me to pay them a 180€ fee because I haven't used the word WERBUNG (advertising) at the beginning of a handful of posts that included tags to other Instagram profiles. And of course, they also asked me to sign the ridiculous contract and to commit to paying 5.100€ in case I will ever do this mistake again.
- They were not interested whether I have received something for these tags or not
- In fact, one of the tags was a good friend and colleague of mine
I refused to pay the fee as I felt there was nothing I have done wrong and also to sign their contract.
As a reaction, they started a lawsuit against me!
Please support me through this GoFundMe campaign and share it with as many Aquascapers as possible, so that in the first place everyone knows why every German Instagrammer is using WERBUNG at the beginning of their posts and also to support me in this fight for the right and truth.
I sincerely hope many of you will support this, in case I'm going to win the process, 100% of the money is going to be refunded to you!
I'm not going to keep any single penny of it.
I promise to keep you updated about the further steps of the lawsuit.
Thank you
Jurijs
UPDATE January 2020:
The fight is not over!
Meanwhile I have received several notifications from GoFundMe team about complains from people who have donated about the truth of this campaign, asking me to confirm a bunch of things. This is a little bit disappointing, that my own supporters don't trust me anymore.. For this reason I have to update the campaign description and answer to following questions (send to me by GoFundMe):
1. I have to specify the reason for this campaign
- As described in the original campaign and video, I have been sued by an organization that claims I haven't declared that some of my instagram posts include advertising. Which is not true. Well before they have sued me, I have contacted a lawyer and interviewed him for a podcast about this topic to make sure I act according to the law. Which I have done. Whenever I have been paid to promote product, I have added the German term "Werbung" that means advertising to my posts. In regular posts, where I haven't received any financial benefit from the accounts I have tagged, I haven't used such term - to make it clear to my audience that this particular post is purely my personal opinion and doesn't include any paid advertising. This strategy of diversifying between paid advertising and regular posts and using or not using the term "werbung" is what my lawyer has advised me to do. And if you think about it, it's the only way to do it correct, because if I declare everything is advertising, no one will know which posts include advertising and which do not. After some time no one will pay attention to this declaration any more and the viewer has no benefit from it. The opposite is the case. By declaring everything is advertising, the viewer cannot identify the posts that include REAL advertising and is basically fooled, instead of having a true and non biased information. As a result of being sued for doing nothing wrong, I decided to fight against them in the court, which always has a chance of loosing and being faced with the expanses. To protect my self, I have started this fundraiser. In the Original description I made the promise to refund the money to the donators in case I win the court case and don't need the money my self.
2. My relationship to beneficiary of this campaign or to whom I intend to donate the money
- I'm the beneficiary of this campaign. The purpose of the fundraiser is to have some financial deposit for the worst case scenario. In case I win the lawsuit and it's finally over, I won't need the money. All expanses will be covered by the organization who has started it all. In this case I'm willing to either refund the money to the donators (supporters of this campaign) or to keep it simple, to donate the money to a charity organization that will be determined by the supporters via a voting in the comments of this campaign. After communicating with the GoFundMe team, I was told they can help refund the money to all who have donated. So this my favored scenario. But first, the lawsuit has to be completely over with no more extra rounds etc.
3. Further information that will confirm the authenticity of this campaign
- To further confirm the authenticity of this campaign, you can find the last invitation from the court for March 2020 in the separate Update post. Thank you everyone who has supported me so far! I really hope round 3 is going to be the last round. And in case it goes well and it's finally over after this, I will work with GoFundMe team on a solution to return the money to everyone who has donated.
__
In case you don't do it already, follow me on Social Media
☞ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/juri_js/
Organizer
Jurijs Jutjajevs
Organizer
Eschborn
