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EasyDNS threatened with criminal complaint if client data not disclosed

• giancarlostoro 7y ago
  This is a pretty serious issue if they were to get away with it, although I'm not sure about how legal precedents work in Germany, but regardless holding a domain registrar liable for what the domain itself distributes seems absurd. It's like suing a city for giving land legally to someone who started a drug smuggling operation under that land as if the city knew the intent.
  • cortesoft 7y ago
    Isn't this more like requiring a city to provide the name and contact info for the owner of that piece of land? I think in most places that is public info.
    • giancarlostoro 7y ago
      I suppose so, but then holding them liable for crimes in the land is a bit silly.
      • otterley 7y ago
        I don't think that's why they mentioned "criminal complaint." I suspect (correct me if I'm mistaken) that it's a necessary step to obtaining a subpoena or other process needed to unveil the domain registrant.
        • 1000units 7y ago
          I don't see the distinction.
        • giancarlostoro 7y ago
          Yeah it reads to me (IANAL) as some "legal blackmail", hey give us this info or we sue you for the registrants crimes.
          • HenryBemis 7y ago
            It's an arm twisting move to force give out the name. Once they comply the will move to the next link of the chain and try to twist that arm. It never ends.
            • giancarlostoro 7y ago
              Wonder what happens if the registrant has a fake name and address. I guess the domain gets removed?
      • cortesoft 7y ago
        They are saying they will hold them liable if they don't turn over the customer's contact info.
  • Legogris 7y ago
    A better analogy of something that regularly happens would be demands for a mobile phone provider to hand over all info they have for a number used in drug trade. Not sure how that works in Germany.
    • 1000units 7y ago
      This is hardly analogous. A registrar files some paperwork. A phone provider operates and maintains equipment that provides the functionality of the phone.
      • Legogris 7y ago
        Good point. MVNOs don't really do all of that, but I see what you mean.
  • ethagnawl 7y ago
    Germany has some surprisingly regressive (IMO) laws about the internet, copyright, etc. See: https://teleread.org/2018/03/03/project-gutenberg-blocks-german-users-after-court-rules-in-favor-of-holtzbrinck-subsidiary/ https://teleread.org/2018/03/03/project-gutenberg-blocks-ger...
    • GhettoMaestro 7y ago
      Is this a limited case? In general I've heard that Berlin is pretty happening place for privacy activists these days. Kinda makes me scratch my head to read this.
      • johnnyfaehell 7y ago
        Germany is very privacy positive. Majority of the weird internet laws generally come around because of the countries privacy laws. That is why it's got a big privacy activist scene. And that case seems basic Copyright, where in Germany the work is still copyrighted so the copyright owner went to court to enforce it. This seems pretty standard and expected.
• 1000units 7y ago
  Hopefully Herr Fechner loses his license to practice law in Germany. From what I see here, he is an unethical and incompetent attorney and a disgrace to the profession. RE: Herr Fechner of Fechner Law in Germany
  • kd3 7y ago
    His letter almost made me want to sieg heil.
    • dang 7y ago
      Please don't do this here.
  • rndgermandude 7y ago
    Probably not. He didn't do anything wrong, by the letter of the law. He is allowed to make "overestimated" damage claims, demand money and demand money for his services, cite court decisions that are not final yet, and all the other shenanigans he did, sadly. He seems clever enough to walk the line where he is damn close but not yet lying, e.g. when he talks about the criminal complaint stuff. Essentially the only ways he could lose his license is if he knowingly lied, especially to the court, behaved grossly negligent towards his client or violated client privilege.
• djsumdog 7y ago
  > I appreciate your alleged concern for your users’ privacy. Person who wrote this is a dick. They're assuming motives and they also didn't do any due diligence to realize the registrar isn't under the GDPR or located in the EU. This irks me. It feels like if someone discloses a security problem in a city's bus/train ticketing system and the first response is to go to the sheriff's department and see if that person can be criminally prosecuted rather than work with the guy or gal who wants to help you fix your broken system.
  • 1000units 7y ago
    Most small firms who take these kinds of cases have a poor command of language and are generally very unsympathetic.
  • aeorgnoieang 7y ago
    The EU claims that even companies not located in the EU are still subject to the GDPR. I don't think the GDPR is applicable in this case tho. It seems likely to pertain to the EU 'right to be forgotten' law(s).
    • wolco 7y ago
      If you are not dealing with an EU entity or an entity in a country with an agreement with the EU you have no right to be forgotten.
      • henryfjordan 7y ago
        Maybe you don't care about following EU law because you don't live there, but don't plan on breaking the GDPR and then vacationing in France or Italy ever in your life.
        • paulie_a 7y ago
          Because you will get a fine you can ignore? Eu law is not and will not be applicable to most of the planet.
• bonjurkes 7y ago
  The letter mentions the client's name as Mr. Niemela, upon some Googling you can see that he sued Google and some other companies to remove his online presence and some news about him. So it looks like it's just usual practice for him & his law firm. (This info wasn't redacted so I assume it's safe to mention it here)
  • deogeo 7y ago
    > (This info wasn't redacted so I assume it's safe to mention it here) By redacted, I assume you're referring to the EU right to be forgotten? Surely that's not so broad as to forbid the mention of information suppressed by it? The BBC even publishes lists of articles removed from Google via that right: https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-29658085 https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-29658085
    • bonjurkes 7y ago
      I meant the letter published on the article link shows the client's name, without any redaction even thou some other info is redacted. That's why I assumed it's safe to mention client's name here.
  • sverige 7y ago
    Streisand effect in full force with this one.
  • StuntPope 7y ago
    easyDNS here. I don't think that this is the same Niemela. The material covered in this issue is just a plain vanilla image, not of a person.
• otterley 7y ago
  Attorney here! (Not legal advice, consult a licensed attorney in your jurisdiction.) Don't get me wrong, but easyDNS may be jumping hastily to conclusions. In many countries, soliciting business there makes you subject to its jurisdiction and laws, regardless of where your business is based. I don't know German law, but I hope that easyDNS consulted their own attorneys on the subject before publishing this post, or they could potentially end up quite embarrassed.
  • manfredo 7y ago
    So any DNS registrar that registers sites accessible in Saudi Arabia is subject to its blasphemy laws? Without any presence in foreign countries, the most the foreign country can do is block the offending website or infrastructure provider. I guess they could also request extradition, but most countries only extradite citizens if what they did was also illegal in the home country.
    • otterley 7y ago
      "Make accessible"? That, alone, is probably insufficient. But if you advertise there or otherwise target its nationals, then it is much more likely. Enforcement is, of course, a separate matter. The country may not be able to reach you without some sort of agreement with your home country; but if you ever visit a country with which it does have an agreement, you could find yourself taken away to answer to the law.
      • deleted 7y ago
        [deleted]
    • hyperman1 7y ago
      Well no. There was one case where the USA couldn't reach a company in another country, so the next time an employee came on holiday to the USA, he was thrown in jail. Don't remember the details, unfortunately.
      • OatMilkLatte 7y ago
• techntoke 7y ago
  This is why domains are one of the biggest issues when it comes to privacy. Personally I think users should be open to a small client that resolves domains locally using IPFS or whatever else is more difficult to censor, or find a DNS provider that adds TLDs without ICANN.
• the-dude 7y ago
  What is a criminal complaint ? This looks distinctly like a civil matter to me.
  • sjagoe 7y ago
    It's a complaint that is itself criminal.
• HenryBemis 7y ago
  This reminds me the PirateBay letters requesting takedowns. Lawyers bullying people across national borders. Sheer stupidity. I have a cousin, musician, when he finds his music on various pirating websites he emails politely asking them to please help him make a living by removing the link. No empty threats, no bullying. 99% they remove the links within 24h.
• z3j4e 7y ago
  @easyDNS: Is that an old ongoing case? Everywhere in the document they're using 2016. It seems quite funny that they started that in 2016 and using a judgment from 2017 in 2019...
• geggam 7y ago
  This is a good reason to host your site in one country, use a registrar from another, and live in yet another. The most trivial lawsuit will require an international lawyer creating a threshold most significant.
  • inetknght 7y ago
    > The most trivial lawsuit will require an international lawyer creating a threshold most significant. Most people hosting websites can't afford international lawyers.
    • spsoto 7y ago
      I think he refers to the person / entity suing.
      • garmaine 7y ago
        Which means he doesn't understand how the legal process works.
        • geggam 7y ago
          What this means is if you host a website for someone to sue you in a court of law the process instantly requires an international lawyer. They are not cheap. Pick your countries right and arguably you would be hard to sue. IANL but you should consult one when implementing this strategy.
          • garmaine 7y ago
            Nope, that's not how it works. They can simply sue you in the jurisdiction in which you live, getting a court order for you to reveal the information. Details of where it is hosted doesn't matter. Unless you don't mind serving indefinite jail time for contempt of court.
            • 7y ago
• Mathnerd314 7y ago
  The response reminds me of some of the Pirate Bay's responses: https://beebulletin.com/hilarious-pirate-bay-legal-responses/ https://beebulletin.com/hilarious-pirate-bay-legal-responses... The tone is pretty much inviting a judge to impose a hefty fine for noncompliance. I'm not saying they're wrong, just that it seems like a risky stance to take.
  • icebraining 7y ago
    Non-compliance with what? Some random lawyer's demand? Wouldn't they have to get the court to make that demand in the first place?
• TheSpiceIsLife 7y ago
  Why would EasyDNS even write about this? I was under the impression that businesses not infrequently receive threatening letters from legal firms, and that a non-trivial portion of these can’t be acted upon as they don’t follow establish legal norms. I was also under the impression that only the public prosecutor can charge someone with a criminal offence?
  • luckylion 7y ago
    > I was also under the impression that only the public prosecutor can charge someone with a criminal offence? Iirc: the way it works in Germany is that they'd file a criminal complaint, the public prosecutor tries to get the data from the companies / will get a court order to get the data, and the original lawyer will be able to view the information as a joint plaintiff. This was very popular when file sharing was a thing in Germany: the prosecutors would investigate for copyright infringement to get the customer data for a certain IP from the ISP. The lawyers would then initiate civil proceedings and claim large damages.
  • justinclift 7y ago
    As a guess, so future people wanting to threaten them can see how it's likely to go.
• nickodell 7y ago
  EasyDNS's Plain English Terms of Service make them seem like a really unprofessional company: >We are NOT a DDoS Mitigation Service. [...] If you come on this system knowingly bringing a DDoS on your heels we shut down service (we may also wildcard your DNS to localhost and set the TTL on your zone out to a year. You’ve been warned). or >Guilt-by-Association: not only do we terminate any domains or websites which violate our policies, we ferret out every other domain you have on the system under different names, accounts, etc and we terminate those too (don’t worry, we can tell). There is no appeal. I'm not looking for a DNS provider, because I'm perfectly happy with my current one, but sheesh.
  • jacobush 7y ago
    On the one hand, I agree. On the other, it's refreshing to see the terms actually spelled out. Often you have similar things described in a very dry almost inconspicuous way.
  • crusso 7y ago
    It's unprofessional to let prospective customers know that EasyDNS is not a company that specializes in handling DDOS, so just keep looking for a company that can help you out? Seems refreshingly honest to me. And as a customer of theirs, I appreciate that they're looking to protect the infrastructure that I rely upon. Regarding that second part; if you do any kind of online service provision like EasyDNS, you'll quickly realize that the scammers are legion. EasyDNS is giving fair warning to anyone who thinks that they can just burn domain after domain on spamming or other disreputable ventures. EasyDNS won't allow its infrastructure to participate in scams. These guys are extraordinarily ethical and professional.
    • TheCapn 7y ago
      >These guys are extraordinarily [...] professional. I think part of OP's complaint is they are not coming across as professional. It is entirely reasonable to take those stances but their tact is way off and definitely portrays their company in an unprofessional manner. They might be good at what they do, I wouldn't know personally, but they come off as edgy/abrasive/unprofessional and those two quotes alone would have me second guessing if I wanted to work with people who communicate in that manner.
• cj 7y ago
  I've been harrassed by law firms in connection with photograph copyright claims. In my case it was a law firm in France who also had a presence in the US. It was a minor claim (they demanded $500). We took the image down immediately, but they continued to demand their cash "settlement" with multiple letters over a year (1 letter every 1-2 months, each one with increasingly aggressive wording). I eventually got on the phone with the person sending the letters, and turns out they weren't licensed to practice law (in any jurisdiction). I pointed out that it's illegal to misrepresent yourself as an attorney. They hung up and I never received another letter after that. Good on EasyDNS for refusing to turn over customer data. If they did, I assume their customer would be harassed in a similar manner.
  • duxup 7y ago
    I received a legal "threat" via ... LinkedIn. I had a situation where some competing company didn't like that my employer had one page where we compared competitor's products and used their logo (and others) on a simple comparison page. The usage was well within US law. LinkedIn was a strange route as the company has been at the same mailing address forever, there are obvious email contact addresses available to find and so forth. The message was vague enough to sound like it was from a lawyer, and even in a round about way seemed to try to create the misunderstanding that I personally would be in trouble of some sort if I didn't take down the image and any mention of their company... but without actually saying that. I suspect by directly contacting a webdev they hoped I'd take it down without thinking and just move on. I didn't respond, just forwarded it to the folks in charge who engaged a lawyer who responded with a letter telling them to go away. Never heard back from them. I looked up the person who contacted me later, they were some PR drone, no legal background... just vague statements that sounded like legal threats.
    • LinuxBender 7y ago
      LinkedIn is commonly used by debt collectors and "private investigators" to track down and harass people. The default privacy settings and even the most vigilant privacy settings allow for paid accounts to track people down.
  • 7y ago
• crusso 7y ago
  I've used EasyDNS for many years now. They never spam me. They always provide knowledgeable responses to my inquiries. Their online tools have always been simple and worked well. I would recommend EasyDNS to anyone who is looking for no-nonsense DNS hosting.
  • jhgorrell 7y ago
    I have been using them for my personal DNS for years - Been happy with them as well.
• datenwolf 7y ago
  IANAL, but here's my assessment on this: First and foremost, as far as I know, a registrar disclosing customer data without a warrant would violate the law in Germany as well. For `.de`-Domains the holder information used to be publicly available, at the dismay of privacy activists; in the same way the ICANN wanted the same. Then GDPR came and pretty much put a legally binding end to this. And it comes down to this: Under GDPR such customer information enjoys strong protection. A lawyer has no more rights to that information than any other party who's not tasked with enforcing the law. The intention of this letter is to gain information about the EasyDNS customer, so that this customer can be sent a cease and desist, which due to some lack in German C&D law can carry a hefty fee. Inside Germany a whole range of law firms specialized on actively searching for unlawful behavior and sending out C&D en masse. A common practice among these firms is to scrape BitTorrent trackers for peer IPs + timestamps (or to actually manufacture them), bundling them all up in a criminal complaint so that ISPs must deliver to the state attorney the names of the customers these IP addresses were assigned to at the given time. However instead of pressing charges they will then drop the case, and instead send C&D letters to those people. The lawyers who operate that way have become known as "Abmahnanwalt" The lawyer who send this letter is Robert Fechner. And lo and behold: Robert Fechner is known to be such an Abmahnanwalt: https://www.google.com/search?q=abmahnanwalt+fechner https://www.google.com/search?q=abmahnanwalt+fechner
  • kardos 7y ago
    Do you have an approximate translation of Abmahnanwalt? Google translate punts on it
    • severine 7y ago
      Internet seems to call it "cease and desist lawyer". (In short an 'Abmahnanwalt' is a lawyer who admonishes you for breaking certain rules and who can charge you for the service... quite close to 'Abschaum' in German dictionaries, as the basic idea may not really that bad, but it is heavily misused by some) Source: https://www.dpreview.com/forums/thread/4060159 https://www.dpreview.com/forums/thread/4060159
  • mr_toad 7y ago
• deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
• Causality1 7y ago
  I'm not offended by many things but the solipsistic thinking that results in someone trying to enforce their country's laws on people or entities in another country is one thing that makes my blood boil.
• tpmx 7y ago
  Of course it was Germany. The country where a local judge successfully put de.wikipedia.org offline for a couple of days because of a single article. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_censorship_in_Germany https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_censorship_in_Germany
• gumby 7y ago
  > It’s almost as if Herr Fechner doesn’t understand that Canada is a completely different country than Germany Or that Herr Fechner knows that a nastygram like this will please his customer who can be billed for writing, translating and sending it.
• merb 7y ago
  uf the linked judgement is not absolute, which means they threadened with something that might hold up. but does not need to. the judgement mostly validated the single case. the letter/mail is just plain threatening. copyright law in germany is in a bad state so be aware.
• aasasd 7y ago
  > German law firm > to transfer €1,481 Treading dangerous water there. I wonder what the transfer fees are.
• codela49121 7y ago
  Is this the lawyer that made the legal threat? https://www.fechner-legal.de/en/robert-fechner/ https://www.fechner-legal.de/en/robert-fechner/ Looks like copyright harassment cases is one of their specialities. https://www.fechner-legal.de/en/copyright-law/ https://www.fechner-legal.de/en/copyright-law/