Not suitable for young audiences content on websites
June 15, 2009 | 15,00 EUR | answered by Dr. Lars Nozar
Dear Sir or Madam,
As an internet agency, we manage a website. One of the features of this website is a guestbook, which is used to exchange non-youth-friendly/pornographic messages. These messages are desired as they are part of the company's business.
Now to my question:
1. Do these contents need to be protected in a special way to prevent access by minors? Currently, we have a page where visitors must explicitly confirm that they are over 18 years old. Is this sufficient, or do we need to carry out a very elaborate credit card verification/ID check?
2. Who would be liable? The website owner, the guestbook writers, or perhaps even us as the agency?
Thank you for your response.
Hello, please note in advance that there are almost daily new judgments and legal opinions from case law.
If you look into the Telemedia Act, paragraph 10 clearly states that service providers must immediately remove or block access to illegal content as soon as they become aware of it. Not before.
However, it is only a matter of time before internet agencies and even server operators become liable.
Therefore, please be very cautious and always legally verify everything. The prosecutor could quickly be in the house and seize PCs, etc. From a legal point of view, access controls should be as strict as possible. Or do you want children to blog there? Without strict controls, you cannot prevent this. And this could be to your disadvantage.
Therefore, I also see you as an agency liable. For this reason, you should subject the contract with the operator to a very special legal review. Just to be on the safe side...
Regards
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