Unister

Unister was a German internet company headquartered in Leipzig that built and marketed a portfolio of consumer web portals. It was founded in July 2002 by Thomas Wagner, then a business administration student in Leipzig, and launched its first site, a student exchange platform called unister-netz.de, at unister.de in October 2002. Over the following years the company expanded to more than 40 of its own websites, partly through new launches and partly through acquisitions, and became active mainly in travel, finance, automotive, media, real estate and social media. To promote its sites, Unister bought advertising space on Google and produced television testimonials featuring celebrities such as Michael Ballack and Reiner Calmund. By 2010 Unister had around 1,670 employees and offices in Berlin, Hamburg, Düsseldorf, Dresden, Stralsund, Magdeburg, Jena and Chemnitz. In the 2010 financial year the Unister Holding generated revenue of roughly 227 million euros and a loss of about two million euros. It was among the largest independent German internet companies and recorded more than 10 million unique users per month according to the Arbeitsgemeinschaft Onlineforschung. Thomas Wagner was the main shareholder until his death in 2016. Until 2011 the company generated a large part of its surpluses through Google arbitrage: its own placed ads brought in more revenue than the Google ads cost. In 2011 Google prohibited this practice. From then on, legally questionable additional products were created to compensate for the lost revenue, and these attracted public prosecutor investigations. Unister was also criticized for consumer friendliness and its treatment of competitors, particularly in the travel market. In September 2011 several senior employees, especially from the tourism division, left the company; Wirtschaftswoche suspected partly moral reasons and noted that Unister had a dubious reputation in the travel industry. In February 2012, after criticism from the Verbraucherzentrale Sachsen about the portal fluege.de, an Unister spokesperson said one should "look closely before booking". The background was complaints from consumers who had cancelled a booking, for example because they did not want to use one of Unister's offered payment methods, and were then warned to pay the full travel price. The Bundesgerichtshof had already ruled against Unister in 2011 regarding the implementation of an EU directive requiring the final price in flight bookings to be shown transparently at an early stage. Unister had refused to implement these rules through a self-commitment in the travel industry. In the criticized booking processes, at least until summer 2012, additional services were pre-selected in the traveler's chosen package, so that the interested party had to recognize and deselect them before completing the booking. On 10 July 2012 Unister announced that it had ended these pre-settings, especially for travel cancellation insurance. The Unister spokesperson described the consumer association's allegations as standard industry practice; fluege.de acted no differently from other large booking portals, and the opt-out function existed at many large portals. Unister had also received a seal from VBS Verbraucherschutz e. V. (verbraucherschutz.de); however, the Oberlandesgericht Dresden prohibited its use on the fluege.de website on 3 July 2012 under threat of a fine of up to 250,000 euros, because consumers got the impression that the association was an independent testing body, while in fact it sold services to companies and had nothing to do with the consumer advice centers. In July 2012 the magazine Computer Bild published an extensive article about the methods of the Unister Group. Unister responded with a penalized cease-and-desist declaration and accused the magazine of false statements of fact. Courts upheld Unister on some points, but Computer Bild maintained its portrayal on most points.

Unister was founded in July 2002 by Thomas Wagner, a business administration student in Leipzig, who was one of its managing directors, with interruptions, until his death in 2016. In October 2002 a student exchange platform, unister-netz.de, went online at the address unister.de. Over time the number of its own websites increased to more than 40, partly through new foundations and partly through acquisitions. The company was mainly active in the business areas of travel, finance, automotive, media, real estate and social media. To make the sites known, Unister bought advertising space on Google and produced television testimonials with Michael Ballack and Reiner Calmund. Retrospectively, Heinz-Roger Dohms on tagesschau.de assessed the advertising effort as follows: "From the supposed 'success story Unister' ultimately mainly two profited: Google and the television stations." In February 2008 Unister Media GmbH was founded, specializing in the marketing of online portals. The company also founded a market research company, UMA Unister Market Research & Analysis. The company, based in Leipzig, had about 1,670 employees in 2010 and had branches in Berlin, Hamburg, Düsseldorf, Dresden, Stralsund, Magdeburg, Jena and Chemnitz. In the 2010 financial year the Unister Holding achieved revenue of around 227 million euros and a loss of about two million euros. Unister was one of the largest independent German internet companies and recorded more than 10 million unique users per month according to the Arbeitsgemeinschaft Onlineforschung. The main shareholder of Unister was Thomas Wagner until his death. Until 2011 the company generated a large part of its surpluses through Google arbitrage: its own placed ads brought in more revenue than the Google ads cost. In 2011 Google prohibited this practice. From then on, legally questionable additional products were created to compensate for the lost revenue. There were public prosecutor investigations regarding these additional products. The company was one of the large German e-commerce providers. Unister developed and marketed internet portals. It was active, among other things, in the travel market and in the brokerage of insurance and credits, and was criticized with regard to consumer friendliness and its treatment of competitors. In September 2011 several senior employees, especially from the tourism division, left Unister. Wirtschaftswoche suspected partly moral reasons behind this; Unister enjoyed a dubious reputation in the travel industry. An Unister spokesperson said in February 2012, after criticism from the Verbraucherzentrale Sachsen about the portal fluege.de, that one should "look closely before booking". The background was complaints from consumers who had cancelled a booking, for example because they did not want to use one of the payment methods offered by Unister, and were then warned by the company to pay the full travel price. The Bundesgerichtshof had already sentenced Unister in 2011 to implement an EU directive and thus confirmed a lower-instance judgment. According to this directive, the respective final price for flight bookings must be shown transparently at an early stage. A final price indication only at the conclusion of the booking was to be prevented. Unister had refused to implement these provisions within the framework of a self-commitment in the travel industry. In the criticized booking processes, at least until summer 2012, additional services were already pre-selected in the traveler's chosen travel package. The interested party was therefore required to recognize additional services as such and to deselect them before final booking. On 10 July 2012 Unister announced that it had now ended these pre-settings, especially in the area of travel cancellation insurance. The Unister spokesperson described the consumer center's allegations as standard industry practice; fluege.de did not act differently from other large booking portals. The opt-out function (one must deselect insurance) existed at many large portals. In addition, Unister had received a seal from VBS Verbraucherschutz e. V. (verbraucherschutz.de); however, the Oberlandesgericht Dresden prohibited its use on the website fluege.de on 3 July 2012 under threat of a fine of up to 250,000 euros. Consumers got the impression that this association was an independent testing body. In fact, however, it sells services to companies; the association has nothing to do with the consumer advice centers. In July 2012 the magazine Computer Bild published an extensive article about the methods of the Unister Group. Unister responded with a penalized cease-and-desist and obligation declaration and accused the magazine of false statements of fact. Courts upheld Unister on some points, but Computer Bild maintained its portrayal on most points. Unister had bloggers warned (as of April 2013) who referred to the corresponding critical reporting. In December 2012 Unister founder Thomas Wagner gave an interview to the FAZ. He answered the question of why Unister, even after ten years in the market, repeatedly gave the impression of "not being up to date" by saying that the company had "built up many projects in parallel in the past. Of course mistakes happen. We learn from them and constantly improve." In 2014, according to the business news service Bloomberg, the Unister Holding was to be sold. The sale price was estimated at around 1.5 billion euros (2.1 billion US dollars). In July 2015 Unister announced the cutting of a total of 250 jobs. The company later became insolvent and is now a former German company.

• Unister founded by Thomas Wagner in Leipzig.

• Student exchange platform unister-netz.de goes online at unister.de.

• Unister Media GmbH founded, specializing in marketing online portals.

• Unister has about 1,670 employees and revenue of around 227 million euros.

• Google prohibits Unister's Google arbitrage practice.

• Bundesgerichtshof rules against Unister regarding EU directive on transparent final prices.

• Several senior employees, especially from tourism, leave Unister.

• Oberlandesgericht Dresden prohibits use of VBS seal on fluege.de.

• Unister ends pre-selected travel cancellation insurance.

• Computer Bild publishes critical article on Unister methods.

• Thomas Wagner gives interview to FAZ.

• Unister Holding reportedly up for sale at around 1.5 billion euros.

• Unister announces 250 job cuts.

• Thomas Wagner, founder and main shareholder, dies.

One of Germany's largest independent internet companies, operating and marketing consumer web portals in travel, finance, automotive, media, real estate and social media.

• fluege.de

  Flight booking portal.

• ab-in-den-urlaub.de

  Travel booking portal.

• Unister Media GmbH

  Subsidiary specializing in marketing online portals.

• UMA Unister Market Research & Analysis

  Market research company founded by Unister.

• Consumer protection criticism and legal disputes

• Google arbitrage and questionable additional products

Read more

• Television testimonials with Michael Ballack and Reiner Calmund

1. 1Unister – Wikipediade.wikipedia.org
2. 2Unister – Wikidatawikidata.org
3. 3Flöther & Wissing | Rechtsanwälte | Insolvenzverwaltung | Sanierungskulturfloether-wissing.de
4. 4Über uns - Flöther & Wissingfloether-wissing.de
5. 5Events - Flöther & Wissingfloether-wissing.de
6. 6Kontakt - Flöther & Wissingfloether-wissing.de