Arcor to Block Google?
Fun things happening on the porn front. I’ll try to summarize and extend this heise.de article which goes into detail on what is going on.
Some time ago, Arcor, a german ISP, started blocking YouPorn because of a court order. The problem is that in germany porn sites need to do age validation to keep the kids out, which is all fine and good. We all know though, if you want porn, you can get it. One of those sources might be YouPorn which asks you via a simple button if you are over 18. Slowly all hell broke loose in the porn world, especially because what this does, is give an example on future cases that are similar. That would mean that any site running in a foreign country that does not adhere to German law can and needs to be blocked. Some say it seems a bit like the Chinese firewall. :)
Well now the case just got a bit more interesting because on German company now sued Arcor to block Google, because you can get endless porn with the right searches, especially on Google Images, including searches that will give you animal porn, all but illegal in Germany.
In general the company giving the service to access the internet, needs to, when notified, block the offending site/page. This site in this case is Google and I would not be too surprised if Arcor is actually happy about the request to block Google. Who better to have on your side than Google in this case. Theoretically any site in Germany actually needs an “Impressum”, a small part where it becomes clear who is running the site with their full address. As foreign sites often do not have that, a provider might have to block all of them.
It’ll be fun to see how this turns out because I am pretty sure that Arcor does not want to block Google, and Google doesn’t want that either. :)
Update: Heise reports the first verdict is out. Arcor doesn’t have to block Google. It seems that Arcor isn’t the cause of it, they don’t make money with it, and it is hard to block. The same thing now applies to YouPorn and others, which was the entire point of the exercise.