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Germany says guestbooks must be checked every week

OUT-LAW News,

In a case concerning a tax advisor who became the subject of defamatory comments in the guestbook of a non-commercial web site, a German court has ruled that the operators of the web site should monitor their guestbook at least once every week.
In a case concerning a tax advisor who became the subject of defamatory comments in the guestbook of a non-commercial web site, a German court has ruled that the operators of the web site are liable for the comments of third parties and that they should monitor their guestbook at least once every week.

An anonymous entry in the web site said that a tax advisor, whose name and address were included in the comment, would assist with money laundering. For almost a month, the comment remained on the guestbook before being removed upon coming to the attention of the operators.

Action was taken against the site operators under Germany�s Use of Telecommunications Services Act. The operators said that they were unaware of the entry and would have removed it immediately � had it been brought to their attention.

They also pointed out that there was a disclaimer on their site, saying that they were not responsible for the content of the guestbook.

The court acknowledged that the operators of the site could not be responsible for all comments made by third parties on their guestbook. However, it considered that it was reasonable to expect them to check and remove the comments far earlier than they had done.

According to the court, private homepages with �limited space� for guestbook entries should be checked at least once every week. Web sites cannot escape this obligation by using a disclaimer, the court added, and guestbook entries will be attributable to the web site owners as if they are their own comments.

There are few details of the ruling available at this time. The above facts are from a press release of the German State Court in Trier. It concludes that the Koblenz Regional Court dismissed an appeal against the judgment. The names of the parties and the web site involved were not disclosed.

The decision is surprising and inconsistent with the E-commerce Directive. The Directive, in effect, says that web site operators do not need to monitor the material posted to their sites by third parties, provided they take action immediately upon becoming aware of illegal material.

However, this is not the first decision by a German court in recent months which appears to run against the E-commerce Directive.

Steffi Graf successfully sued Microsoft in a German court, effectively punishing the company for refusing to monitor web sites which gave access to third parties, notwithstanding Microsoft�s willingness to remove offending material upon it being brought to the company�s attention.

See also: Steffi Graf wins German case on liability of web host, OUT-LAW News, 30/05/2002

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