A court in The Hague has rejected claims by weather services that a revamped app introduced by weather bureau KNMI constitutes false competition.

The government-funded KNMI app is free while other services such as Weerplaza and Buienradar, which provide the same local forecasts and radar images, depend on advertising and subscriptions. That gives the KNMI an unfair advantage, the companies, united in umbrella organisation NVMB, argued.

The judge ruled the claimants did not have an urgent interest in the case seeing the KNMI has been providing local weather forecasts since 2017.

The judge would not rule on a ban on radar images because a political decision about this is still pending.