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Germany was referred to the EU court of justice for non-compliance with the advertising ban:

http://europa.eu/rapid/pressReleasesAction.do?reference=IP/0...

Germany also unsuccessfully tried to disarm the ban itself:

http://curia.europa.eu/juris/showPdf.jsf?text=&docid=66366&p...

Australia is very different from that. They banned advertising to consumers in most ways. They still can put ads in magazines for retailers (because they aren't the end user).

Now we also have "plain packaging laws" which means packets cannot have the Tobacco companies design on it. They must be olive green and have government anti-smoking ads, and the product name in plaintext.

Oh, over here that's been banned as well. I thought it was an EU thing but I guess it was our government. They're even banned from sponsoring events.

That is the case in Canada too. Tobacco companies have been banned from sponsoring events since sometime in 2003.

Basically only here in Germany. I was so confused to see a cowboy ad at a metro stop.