Splunk Can't Sue Deutsche Telekom In USA Over Magenta Trademark Bullying Occurring In Germany

from the ruling-by-reputation dept

If you were to simply input the word "magenta" into the search bar at the top of Techdirt, you will note that two company names seem to keep coming up in the articles: T-Mobile and its parent company Deutsche Telekom. This is because those two companies have been incredibly annoying at with their nonstop bullying of other companies, often in entirely unrelated industries, for daring to use the color magenta in their branding. While some will want to argue that very specific colors can definitely be trademarked, this misunderstands how T-Mobile and DT operate, which is to threaten plenty of companies that use a similar purple color and those that use magenta but in different marketplaces. Notably for the purposes of this post, much of this trademark bullying has occurred in Europe, though not all of it. The point is that DT is a trademark bully when it comes to the color magenta and everyone knows it.

Which is what makes it disappointing to see a company like Splunk lose its ability to sue DT in America to have its use of magenta declared non-infringing solely because it has thus far only been bullied in Germany.

Tech company Splunk Inc can't sustain its lawsuit against Deutsche Telekom over its trademark rights in a "color gradient" that includes DT's signature color magenta, a San Francisco federal court ruled Monday.

U.S. District Judge James Donato said Splunk didn't have a "reasonable apprehension" of litigation in the U.S. based on a cease-and-desist letter it received from DT about its conduct in Europe and DT's trademark action against it in Germany.

On the one hand, this is a jurisdictional technicality and comes after Deutsche Telekom representatives insisted to the court that there were "no plans" to sue Splunk for trademark infringement in the United States. From the court's perspective, this led it to the conclusion that there was no actual conflict within its jurisdiction.

But on the other hand, DT does have a reputation to consider and it appears that there is enough interpretation being done in this ruling that it certainly could have taken that reputation into better account. From the ruling:

“[T]rademark disputes are justiciable under the Declaratory Judgment Act when ‘the plaintiff has a real and reasonable apprehension that he will be subject to liability.’” FN Cellars, LLC v. Union Wine Co., No. 15-cv-02301-JD, 2015 WL 5138173, at *2 (N.D. Cal. Sept. 1, 2015) (quoting Chesebrough-Pond’s, Inc. v. Faberge, Inc., 666 F.2d 393, 396 (9th Cir. 1982)). For this inquiry, the Court focuses “upon the position and perceptions of the plaintiff” and the “acts of the defendant,” which are “examined in view of their likely impact on competition and the risks imposed upon the plaintiff.” Chesebrough-Pond's, 666 F.2d at 396 (cleaned up). The showing of apprehension “need not be substantial” when an allegedly infringing mark is in use. Societe de Conditionnement en Aluminium v. Hunter Eng’g Co., 655 F.2d 938, 944 (9th Cir. 1981).

There is no bright-line application of these factors to decide justiciability. “The question in each case is whether the facts alleged, under all the circumstances, show that there is a substantial controversy, between parties having adverse legal interests, of sufficient immediacy and reality to warrant the issuance of a declaratory judgment.”

Here the court acknowledges that there is no bright line and that the "apprehension need not be substantial." Splunk has a reasonable apprehension that it will be the target of a trademark action by DT, given that it is a target of one in Germany for the exact circumstances it's seeking relief. Despite DT's reputation as a trademark bully and the action initiated overseas, however, the court takes a very narrow view of that action, as well as taking DT's word that it doesn't plan to sue Splunk.

On the record before the Court, Splunk has not demonstrated a reasonable apprehension of being sued in the United States by DT. The salient facts, which are not in dispute, are that DT: (1) sent a demand letter to Splunk under German and EU law for Splunk’s conduct in Europe; (2) filed a trademark action against Splunk in Germany over the EU conduct; (3) reserved its trademark rights under U.S. law; and (4) has not sued Splunk in the United States, and did not oppose Splunk’s trademark proceedings before the TTAB. These facts are a country mile from the circumstances typically deemed sufficient to establish DJA jurisdiction.

Again, it's not that the court is wrong. Still, it seems like there is a reasonable chance DT will prove the court wrong with a lawsuit sometime in the future, given its past and present actions. If that were to occur, it would render this court's decision somewhat silly.

As silly, frankly, as the fact that these kinds of disputes over the color magenta need occur in any jurisdiction.

Filed Under: germany, magenta, trademark, us
Companies: deutsche telekom, splunk, t-mobile

Lemonade Beats Deutsche Telekom In French Court Over Use Of The Color Magenta

from the when-life-gives-you-magenta dept

Last year we wrote about a New York insurance company called Lemonade being forced by a German court to cease using the color pink/magenta in its branding in Germany after a dispute with Deutsche Telekom, parent company of T-Mobile. See, DT has a long, long history of using insane trademarks its been granted for the color magenta to go after all kinds of other companies, whether they're actually using that same color or not, and regardless of whether they compete in the same marketplace or not. While Lemonade complied with the court, it then took two further steps. First, it released a Chrome browser extension that strips the color pink out of, well, everything in the user's browser. This was coupled with a #FreeThePink PR campaign. And the, for added measure, Lemonade set out in various European courts to invalidate any claim DT might have to the trademark for the color in the field of financial services.

Well, the first resolution of one of those cases is out and it's a full win for Lemonade. Note that much of the text in the quotes below is from a press release, but the factual aspects of it still stand.

Deutsche Telekom has owned the French trademark on the color pink, or magenta, in the field of financial services (known as ‘class 36’) since it registered this color-mark 25 years ago. No longer. In a ruling issued on December 15, 2020, French authorities found that “there is no evidence of genuine use of this mark for the contested services” by Deutsche Telekom, confirming that “the owner of the contested mark should therefore be deprived of his rights.”

“The French decision hopefully signals a turning point in the battle to stop trademark trolling by Deutsche Telekom and T-Mobile,” said Daniel Schreiber, Lemonade CEO and cofounder. “In recent years DT has banned the use of pink by a technology blog in the US, an aspiring watchmaker seeking crowd-funding on Indiegogo, an invoice processor in Holland, a nine person IT shop in England. That’s nuts. When they tried to extend their monopoly over pink to the insurance industry, we felt it was time to fight back. If some brainiac at Deutsche Telekom had invented the color, their possessiveness would make sense. Absent that, the company’s actions just smack of corporate bully tactics, where legions of lawyers attempt to hog natural resources – in this case a primary color - that rightfully belong to everyone.”

Again, press releases quoting their own subjects in this case, but the points still stand. What's notable about this is two things. First, DT has gotten away with its bullying over the color magenta, largely successfully, chiefly because nobody ever fights back. As Schreiber notes above, this represents a very rare pushback instead. And, perhaps more importantly, Lemonade also notes that it's going to pursue this in other European markets as well.

The whole thing is monumentally dumb on the part of DT. To wield a trademark in an industry in which they do not participate in order to smack around small companies over the use of an extremely common color has nothing to do with how trademark laws are supposed to work. If ever there were a trademark bully crying out to get the tables turned on it, it sure is this one. And it's nice to see Lemonade has gotten its first win.

Filed Under: germany, magenta, trademark
Companies: deutsche telekom, lemonade, t-mobile

The Color Magenta, Or How T-Mobile Thinks It Owns A General Color

from the ownership-society dept

You might think that throwing a word like "magenta" into the Techdirt search engine wouldn't get you any results. But you would be wrong about that and you'd be wrong entirely because of T-Mobile and its parent company Deutsche Telekom. See, Telekom has trademark rights in several countries for a very specific shade of magenta. And with those trademarks, Telekom rather enjoys threatening other businesses that dare to use anything that remotely looks like magenta in their trade dress, whether the color in question is actually magenta or not, and regardless of whether the other company is even a competitor or not.

And Telekom is still at it to the present. A German court has informed a startup insurance company out of New York called Lemonade that it must cease to use the shade of pink it's been using in it's branding for three years.

New York-based Lemonade is a 3-year-old company that lives completely online and mostly focuses on homeowners and renter’s insurance. The company uses a similar color to magenta — it says it's "pink" — in its marketing materials and its website. But Lemonade was told by German courts that it must cease using its color after launching its services in that country, which is also home to T-Mobile owner Deutsche Telekom. Although the ruling only applies in Germany, Lemonade says it fears the decision will set a precedent and expand to other jurisdictions such as the U.S. or Europe.

“If some brainiac at Deutsche Telekom had invented the color, their possessiveness would make sense,” Daniel Schreiber, CEO and co-founder of Lemonade, said in a statement. “Absent that, the company’s actions just smack of corporate bully tactics, where legions of lawyers attempt to hog natural resources – in this case a primary color—that rightfully belong to everyone.”

Here is the branding for Lemonade. Judge for yourself whether you think it is somehow confusing with T-Mobile.

Does that branding use a pinkish purple? Yes, yes it does. How close is that color to that trademarked by Telekom? I have no earthly idea, nor do I much care. T-Mobile provides cellular service, whereas Lemonade provides insurance services. Those aren't in the same market. And whatever distinction Telekom might claim that its magenta color has earned, that distinction certainly doesn't magically make any of this confusing.

And, separately, it's still rather galling that a company like Telekom can somehow own the rights to a color in a way that causes it to think nobody else, full stop, can use it. And, yet, Lemonade complied with the court's instructions. But not without making another move.

Although Lemonade has complied with the ruling by removing its pink color from marketing materials in Germany, it’s also trying to turn the legal matter into an opportunity. The company today began throwing some shade in social media under the hashtag “#FreeThePink,” though a quick check on Twitter shows it’s gained little traction thus far: Schreiber, the company’s CEO, holds the top tweet under “#FreeThePink” with 13 retweets and 42 likes.

Lemonade also filed a motion today with the European Union Intellectual Property Office, or EUIPO, to invalidate Deutsche Telekom’s magenta trademark.

It would be absolutely delicious if Lemonade ended up getting Telekom's trademark invalidated. Free the pink.

Filed Under: magenta, trademark
Companies: deutsche telekom, lemonade, t-mobile

Competition Dodges A Bullet As T-Mobile, Sprint Merger Dies

from the phew dept

In the end it wasn't regulators, but giant international egos that derailed Sprint's latest attempt to acquire T-Mobile. As last week's rumors had suggested, T-Mobile owner Deustche Telecom and Sprint majority owner Softbank couldn't agree on terms of the latest attempted megamerger, formally calling off the deal over the weekend. At issue, apparently, was the fact that T-Mobile wanted greater control over the merged company in the wake of the deal. Company executives wanted to keep T-Mobile's momentum, which has resulted in bigger net subscriber gains per quarter than any other U.S. carrier, intact.

The failure is good news for consumers, employees, and business customers alike. Wall Street had estimated that the deal would have killed between 10,00 and 30,000 jobs -- potentially more positions that Sprint currently even has. Telecom history suggests that the reduction of major competitors from four to three would have also had a profoundly-negative impact on overall competition (go ask a Canadian). As a result users not only likely would have seen higher rates, but the end of the recent resurgence in unlimited data plans -- only made possible by T-Mobile's competitive disruption of the market.

In a joint statement, the two companies pay a little empty lip service to the supposed "consumer benefits" of the deal, before promising to get back to upgrading their networks and competing:

"The prospect of combining with Sprint has been compelling for a variety of reasons, including the potential to create significant benefits for consumers and value for shareholders. However, we have been clear all along that a deal with anyone will have to result in superior long-term value for T-Mobile’s shareholders compared to our outstanding stand-alone performance and track record,” said John Legere, President and CEO of T-Mobile US, Inc. “Going forward, T-Mobile will continue disrupting this industry and bringing our proven Un-carrier strategy to more customers and new categories – ultimately redefining the mobile Internet as we know it. We’ve been out-growing this industry for the last 15 quarters, delivering outstanding value for shareholders, and driving significant change across wireless. We won’t stop now.”

The death of the deal is perhaps extra good news for T-Mobile CEO John Legere. Legere has spent the last few years fashioning himself as a massive consumer ally (except for that whole opposing net neutrality and mocking the EFF thing), dropping F-bombs, and making fun of AT&T and Verizon. Selling consumers on a deal all-but guaranteed to devastate sector jobs and price competition would have required some PR acrobatics that challenge the laws of physics.

The death of the deal is ironic, given that Sprint will not likely have a better chance at getting regulatory approval. Softbank and Sprint spent the better part of the year buttering up the Trump administration, going so far as to let Trump take credit for Softbank job promises he not only had absolutely nothing to do with, but which were announced months before Trump even became President. Given the rubber stamp nature of the current FCC, the chances of regulators doing the right thing and stopping the job and competition-killing deal were far from certain.

Fortunately for consumers, fussy international egos derailed the deal before regulators had a chance to downplay how bad a deal it actually was. Sprint can now turn its focus toward striking deals with other companies like Altice and Charter; deals that won't erode the overall level of competition in the wireless sector.

Filed Under: antitrust, competition, consolidation, fcc, mergers
Companies: deutsche telekom, softbank, sprint, t-mobile

Giant International Egos May Derail The Sprint T-Mobile Merger

from the synergies,-yo dept

We've been discussing how Sprint's plan to merger with T-Mobile would be notably awful for the wireless industry. Not only do Wall Street analysts predict it would kill anywhere from 10,000 to 30,000 jobs (potentially more people than Sprint even currently employs), but it would reduce the number of major competitors in the space from four to three -- dramatically reducing the industry's incentive to compete on price and service. The resulting competitive lull could derail many of the good things a resurgent T-Mobile has encouraged in the sector (like the death of long-term contracts and the return of unlimited data plans).

Given the giant industry rubber stamp that is Trump FCC boss Ajit Pai, many analysts believed the administration would approve the deal anyway. Sprint and its Japanese owner Softbank have spent the better part of the year buttering up the Trump administration in preparation for regulatory approval, going so far as to custom craft some job creation bullshit synergies Donald could easily use to justify approval of the arguably-awful deal.

Unfortunately for Sprint lobbyists, they may never get the chance. This week reports out of Japan indicated that Softbank Chair Masayoshi Son had walked away from the negotiations table after a dispute over who should have the most control over the freshly-merged company:

"SoftBank Group plans to break off negotiations toward a merger between subsidiary Sprint and T-Mobile US amid a failure to come to terms on ownership of the combined entity, dashing the Japanese technology giant's hopes of reshaping the American wireless business. SoftBank is expected to approach T-Mobile owner Deutsche Telekom as early as Tuesday to propose ending the talks. They had reached a broad agreement to integrate T-Mobile and Sprint -- the third- and fourth-largest carriers in the U.S. -- and were ironing out such details as the ownership ratio."

T-Mobile and its owner Deutsche Telekom obviously want to retain control of the brand identity of T-Mobile in the wake of the deal, since the company has been immensely successful thanks to actually listening to customers (mostly). Sprint in contrast has stumbled through the last several years loaded with debt, and hasn't been able to craft a brand identity (or a working network) that truly resonates with consumers. It's not particularly surprising that T-Mobile and cheeky CEO John Legere want more control over the merged company than Sprint and Softbank may be willing to give.

The problem for Sprint at this point is that the only thing holding up the company's stock price for most of this year has been merger rumor and speculation. As such, some Wall Street analysts think Sprint might want need to go private if it's to survive fallout from the deal's collapse, while other analysts say failure to finalize the deal could erode up to $50 billion in theoretical value between the two companies:

"(I)f these management teams fail to get this deal across the goal line, they have failed to do their job,” New Street wrote. “They will be walking away from close to $50 billion in value. Regardless of what either side things their asset is worth on its own, adding $50 billion to that starting value would be a big enough increase in value that they ought to have found a way to get the deal done.”

A scuttled deal would be good news for T-Mobile's Legere, who might find synchronizing his consumer-friendly brand with the competition-killing deal a tall order. That said, it remains entirely possible that Sprint's leaked decision to walk away from the negotiations table is a bluff. Since Sprint needs the deal much more than T-Mobile does -- it's more than possible the two sides will still find a way to get the deal done. Should that occur, we can look forward to a winter filled with entirely bogus "synergy" promises as investors wait to see just how big of a mindless rubber stamp the Trump administration truly is.

Filed Under: competition, mergers
Companies: deutsche telekom, softbank, sprint, t-mobile

Telekom Gets Smartwatch Maker To Change All Its Logos Because Magenta

from the purple-productivity-eaters dept

While trademarks being granted for colors strikes me as a special brand of silly in general, there really must be something about the color purple and its associated shades that sparks protectionism. Purple/magenta has been the subject of trademark bullying from several entities in the past, including CraftsAmericana Group, T-Mobile, and Cadbury. What moves the needle on most of these stories from "trademark-gone-too-far" to "trademark bullying" is that these actions tend to be brought against other groups that aren't even operating within the same industry as the offended. That's key in trademark disputes where, in most cases, the two parties must be competing with one another for infringement to occur.

Well, T-Mobile's parent company, Deutsche Telekom, appears to be at it again, sending out threat letters to OXY, makers of a soon-to-be-launched smartwatch, all because the startup dared to use the color magenta in its logo. The company explained to the public why it had to change all of its branding on its website.

Let’s start at the beginning. On August 19th 2015, we filed a trademark for our OXY logo (see the image below) with the Intellectual Properties Office of the United Kingdom. Our registration included the colors pink (#E91E63) and blue-grey (#455A64) and we made sure that, within the classes we filed for (class 9 and class 25), there were no other trademarks interfering with our classification.

On November 3rd, 16 days before we expected the trademark to become official, we received a ‘notice of threatened opposition’ concerning our pending trademark. According to the IPO, it was issued by Deutsche Telekom AG. In addition to the official notice, we received a relatively 'urgent' sounding email from Telekom’s lawyer firm, Hogan Lovells International LLP.

OXY states that the notices it received from HLI LLP prohibit it from disclosing the reason for the opposition but that anyone looking into the matter between it and Deutsche Telekom would be able to guess why. That's true, with a brief review of the prior OXY logo and that of Deutsche Telekom.

So, yeah, magenta again. But not really, as OXY registered its mark using a shade of pink, not magenta, and that difference means that holy shit can we all agree that trademarking colors like this is dumb now? OXY goes on to note that Deutsche Telekom has opposed the trademarks of other companies over the color magenta, but that at least most of the time its targets were in some way competing with it.

While it is debatable whether or not this behaviour is fair, the above mentioned entities (except Engadget) were arguably in direct competition with Deutsche Telekom AG. Plus, Deutsche Telekom AG is by far not the only company owning a color-related trademark and they are also not alone in filing corresponding lawsuits. But why did they want us to change our logo? We are making a smartwatch - nothing that would eventually compete with Telekom’s products and services.

That distinction would likely mean that OXY had a good case to defend itself on the merits. Unfortunately, as is the case in too many of these trademark bullying stories, fear and lack of resources made the smarter decision for OXY to simply be to cave and go through the hassle of changing all of its logo and marketing material to remove the offending pink/magenta.

After a few hours, we got very valuable feedback from our external advisors and started to slowly understand what was going on. Since we didn’t have the financial resources to fight Deutsche Telekom AG on this matter, and because we also didn’t want to just ignore them, we basically had two options left: We could either negotiate with Telekom to find a price for using the old logo, or we could change everything.

Last weekend, we had to change all logos and colors of the OXY brand, which included modifying over 25,000 image files and countless other design related properties. Besides substituting the colors in most of our design elements, we had to update all our social media channels, our website and our upcoming Indiegogo page. As you can probably imagine, it took us a while, and we didn’t really enjoy doing it.

All in the name of trademark, built to keep customers from being confused, while instead being used simply to push small new businesses around for no valid reason. Yay.

Filed Under: logos, magenta, smartwatch, trademark
Companies: deutsche telekom, oxy

Deutsche Telekom Follows Vodafone's Lead With Transparency Report: Disclosing Surveillance Operations

from the a-trend dept

This morning we wrote about Vodafone's decision to release a much more accurate "transparency report" that actually revealed that many governments have direct access to listen in on Vodafone calls. It appears that has now inspired Deutsche Telekom to release similar reports about its surveillance help around the globe, including in the US.

A spokeswoman for Deutsche Telekom, which has 140 million customers worldwide, said: "Deutsche Telekom has initially focused on Germany when it comes to disclosure of government requests. We are currently checking if and to what extent our national companies can disclose information. We intend to publish something similar to Vodafone."

Of course, that "checking" suggests that while it may want to reveal similar to what Vodafone did, it will be limited in how much it can reveal in the US, where companies are often placed under strict (and almost certainly unconstitutional) gag orders. As the report notes, in Europe, this leaves Orange as the only one of the big three mobile operators who has not yet agreed to reveal such transparency on surveillance -- and it may put that company in a tough spot, since it apparently has "deep links" with French intelligence.

Either way, it's nice to see an outbreak in transparency when it comes to government surveillance.

Filed Under: mobile operator, privacy, surveillance, transparency report
Companies: deutsche telekom, orange, vodafone

Deutsche Telekom Dumps Net Neutrality; Will Limit Bandwidth For Competing Video & Voice Products

from the net-neutrality-is-for-other-people dept

It appears that Deutsche Telekom has decided that it can and should ignore the basic principles of net neutrality. It is setting up limits on how much traffic its customers can use, and saying that competitors' video products will automatically be throttled to 384k, which makes them basically useless. But, of course, this throttling does not apply to Deutsche Telekom's own video offerings.

The data traffic generated by the use of Telekom' own IPTV platform Entertain won't be attributed to the volume integrated in the tariffs. "With Entertain, customers book television. We will therefore ensure that they will not suddenly sit in front of a black screen," explained Hagspihl. Also, voice telephony through Telekom's fixed line subscription will be excluded.

But... competitors? Well, too bad. This is a fairly bold move by DT. Of course, telcos have long wanted to do this, trying to force people and lock them in to their own (often overprice and underpowered) services, but to directly punish competitors is a pretty blatant statement by Deutsche Telekom that it thinks it can get away with this because of its dominant position in the market. Of course, if I'm a Deutsche Telekom customer, I'd be incredibly pissed off that Deutsche Telekom is basically telling me that I'll be penalized for using other video or voice services, even if they're better. Yes, those competing services will work fine beneath a certain traffic level, but people don't realize just how much data they often use these days -- especially when you're talking about bandwidth-heavy video.

Deutsche Telekom's explanation for this is almost entirely bogus.

"We want to continue offering our customers the best network in future into which we invest billions of euros. However, constantly increasing bandwidths can't be financed through constantly dropping prices. We will have to charge customers with very high data consumption more in future," said Michael Hagspihl, managing director marketing at Telekom Deutschland.

First of all, broadband remains an incredibly profitable business, and while the telcos love to make these claims, they're simply not supported by the data. They're making money like crazy on their existing networks, and although keeping up with the growth in bandwidth does require some investment, it's easily affordable under the current structure. What this is about is exactly what everyone knows: killing off competitors, limiting the market from disruption and trying to control these other services, like video and voice, so that people are forced into using Deutsche Telekom's own services.

In fact, Deutsche Telekom's CEO more or less shows off the standard hubris of telco execs these days, believing that the only thing that's important on the internet is his network, and everything else you get is only because of him:

"Without our telecommunications networks and modern primary products there wouldn't be any online services coming from Google or Apple," [Deutsche Telekom CEO Rene] Obermann told the Deutsche Presse Agentur.

Uh, I think you mean that without your monopoly power over the network people wouldn't have to use your lines to reach those services, which is what they really want. The "value" here that people get isn't Deutsche Telekom. They supply the pipes. The value is in all of the various services available, and Deutsche Telekom is trying to make those useless... oh, unless, those service providers want to pay up. It's the same old net neutrality story. The telcos overvalue their networks and they try to get paid twice for the same thing. They want customers to pay to reach Google and Google to pay to reach the customers.

Thankfully, the German government isn't too keen on where this is going:

Economic Minister Philipp Rösler voiced concern in a letter to Telekom's CEO Rene Obermann on Wednesday, a copy of which Spiegel Online obtained.

In the letter, Rösler warned of possible restrictions for "flat rate" customers. He said Federal government and consumer protection authorities would "follow very carefully further developments in relation to the varying treatment of Telekom's own services, and that of others, in terms of network neutrality."

Federal Consumer Protection Minister Ilse Aigner also criticized the new policy in an interview with Spiegel Online. "At first glance, progress for the customer can not be seen," she said. "Limiting flat rates is certainly not consumer-friendly," the Bavarian conservative CSU minister said.

Deutsche Telekom has its dominant position in the market because until not that long ago it was the state owned telecom provider. Trying to block out competitors with bogus excuses and limitations for consumers certainly seems like a pretty big abuse of that position.

Filed Under: germany, net neutrality
Companies: deutsche telekom

Deutsche Telekom Pulls An HP: Accused Of Spying On Journalists And Board Members

from the HP-redux dept

Remember the infamous HP "pretexting" situation that involved HP's chair spying on board members and reporters? It probably shouldn't come as a surprise, but it looks like HP was hardly alone in that sort of enterprise. A few readers have sent in the story coming out of Germany that Deutsche Telekom may have been involved in a very similar operation, spying on board members and journalists trying to find the source of "leaks" to the press. In some ways, it sounds like Deutsche Telekom's efforts may have gone even further than HP's efforts -- though, they seem to have taken place roughly around the same time. Still, it appears that Deutsche's spying activities may have gone on even after the HP story was revealed, so the folks involved must have realized what would happen if the news ever got out.

Filed Under: board members, germany, journalists, spying
Companies: deutsche telekom

So Many Reasons Why Deutsche Telekom Won't Buy Sprint

from the pin-drop dept

There's a rumor going around that Deutsche Telekom is thinking about buying Sprint. This is a bad idea for any number of reasons. Deutsche Telekom owns T-Mobile, which competes with Sprint, and which has certainly fallen way behind AT&T, Verizon Wireless and Sprint in terms of coverage and next generation network deployments. At the same time Sprint has definitely faced some tough times recently that have weighed heavily on the stock. So, you could see why Deutsche might initially think about it. T-Mobile is behind in the game, and merging with Sprint could (emphasis on could) jumpstart the business a bit. Plus, it's reasonable to think that Sprint may be undervalued these days. But... it's still a bad idea. T-Mobile and Sprint use totally different network technologies. Sprint is still dealing with the mess of trying to integrate Nextel's iDen system into its own CDMA-based system (which is part of the reason the company has been in trouble lately), and dumping a third totally incompatible technology into the mix doesn't seem wise. You could (again, emphasis on could) argue that Sprint now has some experience merging totally incompatible networks, but so far it's not exactly good experience. All in all, this seems like someone tossing out a suggestion. It's hard to see this as a legitimate possibility.

Filed Under: integration, mergers, mobile networks
Companies: deutsche telekom, sprint, t-mobile