Legal notice on websites:

Every year, the problem of the external and content-related content of the imprint of Internet pages comes up. Even if you think you’ve already heard about it all, you’ll get a new decision from some court, and will force all operators, not just purely private, to deal with this issue on a regular basis.

Almost all websites are affected


To the same extent, the owners of profiles in Facebook and Co. must also keep up-to-date, because also in principle the imprint obligation.


Required fields


In principle, any website, which serves not only for purely private purposes, must contain an imprint. However, the limit of privacy is, for example, already exceeded when advertising banners, links from partner programs or Google Adwords are integrated. It does not matter whether and how much money you earn with online advertising.


Design


In the case of company presentations, it is also not a question of whether a web shop or "only" is a pure representation of the company. As the Oberlandesgericht (Higher Regional Court), Düsseldorf, in its judgment of 28 December 2012 (file number: I-20 U 147/11), there is also an imprint obligation for such Internet sites, where there is no direct ordering possibility >

Social Networks


A further step is taken by the Landgericht (LG) Aschaffenburg in its decision (judgment of 3 April 2012, file number 2 HK O 14/12) by calling for a correct imprint also for websites still under construction ("Baustellenseiten"). This is probably the reason for the overwhelming number of internet sites, but in case of doubt it is only possible to guess an imprint.


However, according to LG Siegen (judgment of 9 July 2013, file No 2 O 36/13), an exemption applies, for example, to companies located outside the European Union. In this case, the court should also not be legally obliged to make a complaint if the website addresses American users. It remains to be seen whether this legal position will prevail as dominant.


Two decisions of more recent date of the Chamber Court in Berlin concretise the impression content. In the judgment of 7 May 2013 (file no. 5 U 32/12), the court concludes that the obligation to provide the e-mail address can not be replaced by a telephone or fax number or a contact form Br>

By a resolution dated 21 September 2012 (file number: 5 W 204/12), the Berlin court ruled that the lack of an indication of the authorized representative (here: the managing director of a limited liability company) is merely a trivial offense in the imprint Br>

In the light of the decision of the OLG Munich (judgment of 30 September 2010, file number: 6 U 3422/10), the Berlin resolution seems to be consistent. For the Munich OL groups had decided that a Ltd. & Co. KG is obliged, in its web imprint, to provide more details about the KG, but not in addition to the Ltd.


Not only the content, but also the visual design of the imprint menu item is crucial. A web imprint must be


This means that there is


For online marketplaces like Ebay, Mobile.de and so on, the obligation is that the respective registration / input masks must be designed in such a way that the customers can actually fulfill their imprint obligation. In any event, the Higher Regional Court of Düsseldorf in its judgment of 18 June 2013 (file number: i-20 U 145/12) has said this.


In its judgment of August 19, 2011 (file: 2 HK O 54/11), the LG Aschaffenburg (the United States) decided for the first time that there is also an imprint obligation for profiles in social networks. This applies in any case to profiles which are not only purely private. This was decided by LG Frankfurt a. M. as of October 19, 2011 (file number: 3-08 O 136/11).


Printwerbung


The same duty is now, according to the widely held opinion, also profiles, which are of a private nature, but which is used to the function "activate subscribe". Such profiles with "public updates" probably leave the area of ​​privacy and therefore must also have an imprint.


These rules apply not only to Facebook, they are just as much to the competitors. Regarding Google+, for example, the LG Berlin, by order of 28 March 2013 (file no. 16 O 154/13), affirmed an imprint obligation.


However, the subject of imprinting for website operators is not finished with the review of their sites, since also print advertising must contain - depending on the type and content - an imprint with the corresponding obligatory data. According to OLG Rostock (judgment of 27 March 2013, file no. 2 U 21/12), a reference to one's own website does not suffice, but the print-out itself must contain the respective information itself Br>

With similar arguments, OLG Hamm (decision of 13 October 2011, file: I-4 W 84/11) considers that the identity, legal form and address of the supplier of prospectuses, flyers and so on must be attached to it.


The Higher Regional Court of Saarbrücken regards the problematic in its judgment of 6 March 2013 (file number 1 U 41/12 - 13) quite exactly the same. In any case, the obligation to comply with the imprint must be complied with, according to the Saarbrücken judges.