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Dr Love · 10-04-2002, 04:27 PM

As this is my first post on GFY I decided to open a new thread right on;-) Let me start with a short introduction of myself; I have about 8 months experience as webmaster for a smaller TGP. I´m working together with my friend and businesspartner Binghiman. My location is at this time Germany, which is part of the problem I am going to talk about in this post. Ok let me get to the point and start with my small query.

As a webmaster located in Germany I have informed myself about the legal situation regarding pornographic material on the Internet as well as advertising for websites in Germany. It doesn´t look good, I can tell you. According to German criminal law (Strafgesetzbuch §184) it is illegal to make pornographic material available to people under the age of 18. The penalty is prison for up to 1 year or a fine (could be really expensive!) As if this isn´t enough, german law also prohibites advertising of pornographic material if it is possible that minors can take part of it (GjS §1-6). As you probably can imagine we are here facing a huge problem, not just for the ones of us located in Germany in fact; I suppose most of you guys have German visitors on your homepages? There are also some case law regarding this questions and here comes the "the part that makes things still much worse" for us webmasters of TGP:s - we are responsible for the content of our links, this regardless if you use a text to disclaim responsebility for the content therein etc. If you have links with pornographic material - as all of us have since this is our business - the above metioned laws are applicable? (case law: OLG Munich / 21 U 1914/02).

How can we as webmasters guarantee that our german visitors are over the age of 18? Actually we can't?. Installing an online credit card solution will not be sufficient according to the case studies I mentioned; and thus you could still be held responsible if a minor will get into your restricted area.

Maybe some of you have information / solutions to this problem? I would very much appreciate your opinion about this! How do you German webmasters handle these facts?

Thank you for taking you time reading my first post!

Best regards,

Dr Love

10-04-2002, 04:27 PM
Dr Love Registered User Join Date: Oct 2002 Location: Germany Posts: 6	legal problems in Germany? As this is my first post on GFY I decided to open a new thread right on;-) Let me start with a short introduction of myself; I have about 8 months experience as webmaster for a smaller TGP. I´m working together with my friend and businesspartner Binghiman. My location is at this time Germany, which is part of the problem I am going to talk about in this post. Ok let me get to the point and start with my small query. As a webmaster located in Germany I have informed myself about the legal situation regarding pornographic material on the Internet as well as advertising for websites in Germany. It doesn´t look good, I can tell you. According to German criminal law (Strafgesetzbuch §184) it is illegal to make pornographic material available to people under the age of 18. The penalty is prison for up to 1 year or a fine (could be really expensive!) As if this isn´t enough, german law also prohibites advertising of pornographic material if it is possible that minors can take part of it (GjS §1-6). As you probably can imagine we are here facing a huge problem, not just for the ones of us located in Germany in fact; I suppose most of you guys have German visitors on your homepages? There are also some case law regarding this questions and here comes the "the part that makes things still much worse" for us webmasters of TGP:s - we are responsible for the content of our links, this regardless if you use a text to disclaim responsebility for the content therein etc. If you have links with pornographic material - as all of us have since this is our business - the above metioned laws are applicable? (case law: OLG Munich / 21 U 1914/02). How can we as webmasters guarantee that our german visitors are over the age of 18? Actually we can't?. Installing an online credit card solution will not be sufficient according to the case studies I mentioned; and thus you could still be held responsible if a minor will get into your restricted area. Maybe some of you have information / solutions to this problem? I would very much appreciate your opinion about this! How do you German webmasters handle these facts? Thank you for taking you time reading my first post! Best regards, Dr Love