Just what the FFII noticed: Nutzwerk shut down FFII.org (a bit more info as usual at Heise).
Although the corresponding IP address was consistently reachable, the DNS provider registered as the technical contact for the domain FFII.org complied with Nutzwerk's request and shut down the domain FFII.org on the previous Friday afternoon. The name resolution of FFII.org and corresponding subdomains did not work temporarily. After an intervention by the FFII, the DNS provider reactivated the domain that same evening and wants to ask Nutzwerk for a clarification of the demand, according to FFII board member Hartmut Pilch to Golem.de.
A real dilemma: service providers want to protect themselves and unfortunately the Telemedia Act makes life difficult for these service providers: if they are notified of content that constitutes a legal violation, they must remove this content immediately. But how can one assess whether content constitutes a legal violation? Especially when it comes to things like at Nutzwerk - where critical reporting by the company is defined as a legal violation?
In the end, this gives companies a means of censorship without giving service providers (and of course the website operators themselves!) reasonable means of defense. How, for example, is a smaller provider supposed to protect itself from cease-and-desist letters with absurd claim amounts - as the music industry particularly likes to use? Legal protection insurance doesn't help here.
No wonder that some providers see preemptive obedience as the right strategy in such cases - they lose at most the customer they shut down, perhaps a bit of negative press, but taking on a fight against a company with exaggerated ideas, they can't win much.
If you then sit on the board of a privately operated provider like me, you start to wonder what the actual goal of these legislative changes in the context of the Telemedia Act really was ...