Shannon Larratt, the proprietor of several popular but controversial websites devoted to body modification culture (piercing, tattoing, scarification, and the like), says
The German government has been moving forward with their plans to make linking to BME illegal, and have just had me de-listed from Google as an illegal content site.
(…)[When you Google 'BME' in Germany, you see a note which says] they have responded to a legal demand to remove three websites (ie. BME) from the search results. When you click through to the info site, here's what you get: A URL that otherwise would have appeared in response to your search, was not displayed because that URL was reported as illegal by a German regulatory body.
This is a process that the German government started back in 1999. To make a long story short, it is the contention of the German government, I believe incorrectly so, that BME must entirely block underage viewers from seeing anything on the site.
(…)I'm not sure what recourse I have, if any. I'm at additional risk because I'm a German citizen.
Link to post with details on Shannon's blog.
Reader Comment: Anonymous in Germany says,
i thought i'd chime in that the BME zine/google issue is real and at the end of the page i got this (same as the screenshot on the zentastic blog):
"Als Reaktion auf eine gesetzliche Forderung, die Google nach lokalem Recht gestellt wurde, haben wir 3 Seite(n) aus dieser Suchergebnisseite entfernt. Sie können die Beschwerde, die dieser Entfernung zugrunde liegt, unter ChillingEffects.org lesen."
Where "die Beschwerde" links to.
A simple work around is to click on the "google.com in english button" and search for BME there. The site is reachable from Kiel. So what's actually being accomplished here? Why is the German government harrassing these guys? What recourse do they have? And why are they doing such a half assed job?
Surely there must be a way to forge such notices and cause google to unlist parts of the german government!
