Germany seems to have a problem with new technologies, especially when it comes to privacy and data protection laws, as I’ve commented on before.  I’ve often heard the regulation of the internet here referred to as “out-dated” and sometimes even compared with internet restrictions in China.

As if the situation wasn’t complicated enough, each of the 16 German states has its own Data Protection law and agency, in additional to the national law and Data Protection Officer.  Theoretically, the law can therefore differ from state to state, or at least be interpreted differently.

Which explains why businesses in one part of Germany have had to decide whether to remove their Facebook “Like” button (called “Gefällt mir” in German) from their websites and close their Facebook fan pages.

What is unusual is that (more…)

Bloggers in Germany have only just recovered from not having to classify all of their posts.  Yet other Government officials are still finding ways to make our life difficult.

Last week, data protection officials in one part of Germany decided that using 3rd party advertising on a website constituted an unauthorised passing on of personal data, ie. the IP address.

In a similar issue to the use of Google Analytics, this would mean that unless you host all of your banner adverts on your own server or webspace, you would need permission to show them from your visitors.

Can you imagine visiting a site and being asked if you would like to see it with or without banner advertising?  What would you click on? (more…)

If you have read my last few posts about the problems of blogging in Germany, then you will probably not be surprised to learn that making a video or an audio podcast to put online is not easy.

Let’s start with the easy part: filming something and then publishing the film, is basically no different to the situation with a photo.

But with audio, things get even more complicated.  As you might imagine, you cannot just record something and then use it.  If I record an interview for a podcast then I either get written permission to use the recording, or – if the interview is conducted by telephone – ask the interviewee to confirm their agreement once the “record” button has been pressed. (more…)