The Federal Court of Justice (BGH) ruled that users of social networks are not obliged to use their real name. Two users complained that their profiles were blocked by the social network using a pseudonym instead of their real name. This ban was justified with the terms of use of the network.
According to the Federal Court of Justice, the negotiated cases do not stand up to the strict standard of the German general terms and conditions examination.
The BGH today announced the judgments in the dispute over the user’s real name obligation provided for in Facebook’s terms of use. The background to the legal dispute was the lawsuits of two users who were blocked from the network due to the use of a pseudonym for their profile name. The activation of the user account was only possible by entering the name of everyday life, the so-called real name. On the other hand, the plaintiffs had sued because of the violation of § 13 paragraph 6 sentence 1 Telemedia Act (TMG) (old version). The Federal Court of Justice has now also agreed to this and, in addition to the right to free and anonymous expression of opinion, also refers to the possibility of anonymous use using a pseudonym laid down in the Telemedia Act.
“Today’s decision is not surprising in that the Federal Court of Justice declared parts of Facebook’s terms of use to be incompatible with German general terms and conditions law in two judgments last year,” says Thorsten Ihler, partner at Fieldfisher Online platforms massively restricted”. Today’s verdict in the cases being negotiated was influenced by the terms of use in force at the time the profile was blocked, which had been formulated before the General Data Protection Regulation came into force. “It is therefore not possible to say in general whether a real name requirement is always inadmissible . As the court notes, the decisions are limited to old cases. In addition, § 13 TMG was replaced by the TTDSG on December 1, 2021, and in Europe we have been waiting for years for the enactment of a new e-privacy regulation,” the data protection lawyer continued . In other constellations, the rights of other users and the platform could prevail. It will be exciting to see how the courts will assess the fundamental rights positions of the platform and users in line with GDPR and TTDSG.”
www.fieldfisher.com
–
