Not gonna happen in Germany. In Germany if you own a website, you're obliged to tell the world your home address. (That is, by the way, why everyone knows where Lennart Poettering lives).

That's not true.

You need to provide an impression if your website has a commercial or journalistic character. Yes, it's vague and up to the interpretation of a court.

> Yes, it's vague and up to the interpretation of a court.

Exactly. Depends on how much risk you're eager to take. And as a non-lawyer I'd prefer to take none. Most guides for laymen I've found stated that if it's not just about your kittens or vacation, it's not "purely private" any more.

For instance, aforementioned Lennart who writes about his open source projects preferred to provide this info.

I've also heard that the lawyers in this extortion business know some tricks to make the case land on a judge with "correct" interpretations of the related paragraphs. But that's not for sure, I've never been sued in Germany luckily.

Oh, you're the guy behind zturn-stuff =) Thanks a lot, that's given me a great starting point to hack with this board. I hope I'll convince meta-xilinx maintainers to add support for it soon.

Why do you mention him specifically? Did something happen because his address was known?

Would decentralized platforms be liable? Something like Mastodon still requires a host, so I assume the host would be expected to meet these standards. I suppose you could have shift towards human-curated platforms rather than platforms operating at scale.

> Maybe this will revitalize hosting of personal websites where there’s no “platform” to censor your free speech?

Then you have basically unlimited liability, as far as I can tell; hardly seems like an upside.

No, not unless you allow user uploads from other users.

Like having a comment form on your blog?

>Maybe this will revitalize hosting of personal websites where there’s no “platform” to censor your free speech?

In Germany, Austria and Switzerland you are required to disclose your full name, address, telephone number and more if you publish a personal website. This makes it impossible to keep a personal and anonymous website.

That is why having platforms is important.

What if you host your German language site targeting readers in Germany outside of Germany? Is it against the law? There are plenty of hosting choices around the world. I don't see why anyone would host a site in Germany with this condition.

I've dug into that topic a bit. The summary is if you're a German resident OR you're making a website aimed at German residents, you might be successfully sued. Where is it hosted, or whether it is in German at all doesn't matter much.

There is of course always an option to use anonymous hosting and make it hard to identify you from the website content. Then people whose business is to sue other people on the internet will probably leave you alone. But that also destroys the social value of your page.

> Where is it hosted, or whether it is in German at all doesn't matter much

Well, it matters in that if you don't live in the EU, it is unlikely that they will be able to target you for anything.

People in America don't spend much time worrying about the fact that in Saudi Arabia it is illegal to be gay, so I don't see why they would worry the much about copywrite laws in the EU.

> Well, it matters in that if you don't live in the EU, it is unlikely that they will be able to target you for anything.

I guess he means you can't escape the law simply by hosting the site outside of Germany, if you still want to live in Germany, because then they can sue you, even if the country where your site is hosted does not require you to display your home address, phone, etc.

I'm pretty sure that using a Facebook page instead of your own web site does not absolve you of any disclosure obligations that you would otherwise have.