The district government of Dusseldorf, Germany is bringing the anti-censorship activist Alvar Freude to court. The hearing starts tomorrow, on 7 October 2004. Freude is accused of posting hyper-links to censored websites with radical right-wing content on his website and thus helping to promote the distribution of the materials. Freude on the other hand claims he only wants to make German censorship transparent.

The case dates back to a decision taken early in 2002 by the district government of Dusseldorf. They passed orders to more than 80 internet providers to block access from their users to 4 foreign websites.

Providers and civil rights groups united in protest against the directive, but lost 3 out of 4 court cases, confirming immediate enforceability of the orders. Meanwhile, 2 of the 4 websites have been dropped from the blocking-order (rotten.com, a distasteful but not radical right-wing website and front14.org).

The Italian hostingprovider Austici does not have to remove a satirical website it hosts with a parody on the website of the Italian railroad company Trenitalia. On 14 September 2004 the court of Milan rejected a request from Trenitalia to remove the 'offending content' and impose a fine on the provider. The court decided that the parody fell under the protection of the constitutional right on freedom of expression granted in Article 21, and decided Trenitalia had to reimburse the legal costs of 5.100 euro.

Trenitalia could opt for a (much longer and more expensive) civil case against Autistici, but given the clear motivation from the court on the right to create satire, it seems unlikely such an appeal will yield any results.

The case started half July with a letter from Trenitalia to autistici.org announcing the court case. Trenitalia demanded the provider should immediately remove the site, publish an advertisement in 2 national newspapers about the removal of the site and do not use any metatags referring to trenitalia. On top of that, the railroad lawyers demanded refunding of moral and actual damages to the company.

By verdict of 24 June 2004 the Appeals Court of Amsterdam in the Netherlands has to a large extent limited the freedom of internet users to express their opinion anonimously. The main issue in this principal case was whether internet provider Lycos was required to hand over the personal data of one of its subscribers to a third party. This third party, the Dutch lawyer and stamp trader Pessers, claimed this subscriber had treated him unlawfully. The appeal verdict largely confirms an ealier verdict by a judge at the District Court of Haarlem on 11 September 2003, against which Lycos appealed.

Mr Pessers trades in postage stamps on the auction portal eBay and was accused of fraud by a Lycos subscriber, who published Mr Pesser’s name on his website and provided an e-mail address for anyone to report fraudulent incidents they felt Mr Pessers had committed. After complaints from Mr Pessers, the site was removed and the text replaced with "Site removed to avoid legal actions!!". Subsequently Pessers demanded the personal data from the subscriber, but Lycos refused and was taken to court. After the initial verdict, Lycos did hand over the data, but only to find out the address data were false. Pessers started another procedure, to force Lycos to find other ways to retrieve the correct information, but that demand was declined on 1 April 2004. However, this case instigated a debate in the Netherlands whether internet service providers should be obliged to collect the correct information from their subscribers.

In France the owner of a website was convicted to pay a penalty of 450 Euro for publishing personal data without first registering with the Data Protection Authority, the CNIL. On 25 February the appeal-court of Lyon confirmed the earlier ruling, even though the judges decided to suspend payment of the penalty.

Remarkably the website-owner, Roger Gonnet, is a former member of Scientology who denounces the organisation as a cult and mentions names and other data about members on his website. One of these members complained. The first court ordered him to pay a penalty of 450 Euro, plus 450 Euro compensation for attorney costs and a symbolical 1 Euro compensation for general damages. The appeal-court rejected the extra compensation, because the plaintiff could not prove the damages.

The French provider RAS does not have to remove a website from the trade-union SUD-PTT. On 24 November a Paris court rejected the claim from 2 telemarketing companies that the website was both hurtful and defamatory. The rejection is technical; the companies should have chosen 1 single argument for their complaint.

The contested remarks state that one of the companies is being reigned by 'little bosses', a manager is described as being unable to distinguish between friendship and hierarchical relationships and a female president is disqualified as being perfectly aware of the situation, but not acting on it - as usual. (See EDRI-gram nr. 21, 5 November 2003)

The companies are ordered to pay 2.000 Euro to the trade union and 3.000 Euro to provider RAS. The judge explicitly authorised to put the remarks

The appeal court of Zurich (Obergericht) recently published an interesting ruling about hyperlinks. Linking to an anti-racism page which contains links to hate sites does not breach Swiss anti-racism law. A former professor of computer science was accused of racism by setting a link to the site www.stop-the-hate.org. Both in first instance in 2000 and in this appeal he was fully acquitted on all charges.

This American-based website is online since 1992 and contains annotated hyperlinks to hate sites. The public prosecutor argued that the former professor had made the content of the site his own.

A German comedian was ordered to take down his parody website about the German Federal Chancellor (Bundeskanzler). The comedian, Joseph Pohl, operated the website for almost 5 years. Two weeks ago, he received an email from the Chancellors press office, accusing him of infringing on their trademark. Even though the site is as clear a parody as parodies come, with pictures of the comedian on his travels and software solutions for job unemployment, the Chancellors entourage is definitely not amused. They warn Pohl in this email not to undermine the dignity of the office with cheap sarcasm.

Pohls email with a request for mercy was answered by a fax threatening him with a court case.

A Spanish judge last month dismissed charges against a website accused of hyperlinking to illegal material. The website www.ajoderse.com (which means 'fuck off') was accused based on the article 17 of the LSSICE (the Spanish version of the European E-Commerce Directive).