Forums are an "especially dangerous feature" of websites,
according to a ruling published last week by a Hamburg district
court. Heise Online says it has been found liable for content that
appeared on forums, despite the content being removed on
request.
Heise ran an
article that criticised the business practices of a Munich company
called Universal Boards. Some participants in its accompanying
forum appear to have encouraged as many people as possible to
download a file as often as possible from Universal Boards to
disrupt its servers. The company sent a warning to Heise to refrain
from "actively disseminating" these reader comments.
Universal Boards went to court and obtained what Heise called a
temporary restraining order – presumably to prevent similar
postings in future. Heise says the court did not believe its
argument that pre-vetting more than 200,000 comments per month
would be an unreasonable burden.
Heise plans to appeal the ruling. Its legal adviser, Joerh
Heirdich, said: "Moderation of user comments would mean the end of
the fledgling forum culture in Germany."
OUT-LAW has not had sight of the ruling, but the general
guidance for operators in the UK is to decide whether to moderate
or not moderate a forum. Either approach is acceptable but each
carries some risk. With a moderated forum, the moderator can become
liable for content that appears online. With an unmoderated forum,
there must be a facility for requesting the removal of content and
such requests must be dealt with promptly. Similar rules should
apply in Germany since both countries have implemented the EU's
E-commerce Directive which contains these protections.
