 National broadcasters have abandoned an earlier pledge to restrict their online activities.This resulted in newspapers taking court action against the ARD, claiming that the ARD's "Tagessschau" smartphone app, that provides news stories at no cost to the app user, was unfairly subsidised by the licence fee, to the detriment of free-market providers of news content apps.The case was dismissed with the court advising the two sides to agree on a compromise.