German court rules moderators liable for forum comments

[chiawaikian]

German court rules moderators liable for forum comments

 

A Hamburg court has ruled that moderators of online forums may be held liable for forum content. A forum participant on the Heise Online website posted a script intended to disrupt business at Universal Boards, a Munich company criticized for distributing dialers for premium rate phone numbers and buying up expired domain names to advertise pornography. A moderator for Heise Online took down the script at Universal Boards' request, but Universal sued for a temporary restraining when Heise Online refused to sign a formal obligation. The judge ruled that businesses should "reduce the scope of their business operations" if they do not have the resources to properly monitor their web forums. Heise plans to appeal the ruling.

 

 

 

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2006/04/21/mo...e_for_comments/

[Eldmannen]

People who distribute dialers for premium rate phone numbers really sucks. And people who shark expired domain names sucks alot.

 

But I think that making forum moderators responsible for forum comments sucks.

[Mike Rochip]

Maybe with some luck this incident will focus some attention on Universal Boards and draw attention and negative public response to their disruptive business. Besides that, the ruling in this case is ridiculous. I hope it is overturned.

[pwillener]

The point of this ruling is not the business practice of Universal Boards, as despicable they may be, but that forum moderators do have a certain responsibility for the contents of their fora.

[Mike Rochip]

I realize what the point of the ruling is. My point was that I hope that an ancillary effect of the lawsuit, the court proceedings, and the subsequent article describing the ruling would be to bring to light the goings on of Universal Boards and maybe that a negative public reaction will be an unintended consequence of the actions they themselves have undertaken both in the business world and the legal system.