Behind the Brain

A blog about life, the universe, and everything else

 

Welcome to germany…

October 18th, 2010
 

I love this country. As I just learned the imprint of a site has to be reachable without scrolling in a resolution of 800×600 (thanks to Michelle for informing me about this :) )

Two things coming to my mind instantly: 1) Who the hell still uses 800×600 resolution? I thought everything below 1280×1024 has died long ago. 2) When I want to read the imprint of a site (for whatever reason) the first thing I do is scroll down to the bottom of a page because it’s standard that there is a link to the imprint.

Well I just put a link to the imprint in the navigation tab. Even my smartphone is now able to show the link without any scrolling.

In case you have been wondering why I even included an imprint: In germany (this site is hosted in germany and I’m from germany ;) ) every non-private website needs to have an imprint. Yes I know this sounds strange but saying “every commercial” website doesn’t hit the point. If you host a website about your cat, or as a communication platform for your family, and so on you don’t have to put an imprint. However if you – just like I do – host software that could possibly be sold one day you have to include one.

Yes I had the same wtf-look on my face when I first heard this like you probably have right know. I know the exact part of the law and the law is formulated in such a vague way that my personal feeling would be that every website needs one but the explanation above comes straight from a lawyer I know. So I thought I better put in one instead of maybe getting in trouble some day.

 
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3 Responses to “Welcome to germany…”

  1. .faileN
    October 24th, 2010 at 12:44
     

    Hey,
    I don’t know about this 800×600-thingy. I don’t believe this ist correct, at all. However you are right by saying, that only commercial pages (e.g. no non-private pages) need an imprint. The thing is, I guess, that these pages need a disclaimer within their imprints.

    But that’s kind of a trap, you just trapped in: Putting an imprint onto your page, without needing one, suggests lawyers that you know, that there is something, you want to take responsibility for (for example if you mention in your disclaimer, that you don’t take responsibility for the content of linked pages). And this is the trap. Distancing yourself from responsibilty of linked pages is NOT valid in german law. At least that’s what I’ve heard. So if you don’t need an imprint, don’t put it on your site.

  2. Sylence
    October 24th, 2010 at 13:10
     

    Well at least I found something about the scrolling thing: http://www.jurpc.de/rechtspr/20030079.htm (german)

    And when I put this site onliine I did some reasearch on imprints. The thing is that TMG is so crappy formulated that most lawyers say that you only know for sure you need an imprint when it’s too late.

    The thing is I better have one but don’t need one instead of don’t have one but need one. There’s nothing illegal on this site so from my point of view a lawyers can think what they want about what I’m responsible for ;)

    And about distancing one self from linked pages: Yes that’s right. You are not responsible for this if the site was ok when you linked it and you have so many links on your site that you can’t check them all. Of course this is not the case on my site.

  3. .faileN
    October 24th, 2010 at 19:06
     

    Yeah, I know that this isn’t the case for your site. Just wanted to clear things up :)

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