[WhatsName]

Given you are operating in Germany, where sending people cease-and-desist letters (Abmahnungen) purely for monetary gain, I would highly reccomend you to take good care of compliance topics like having a proper Impressum (mandatory contact page).

Unless of course if you plan on never ever growing it into a business, then you might get away with Njalla and cloudflare as invisibility cloak...

[leobg]

The irony is… if you don’t have an impressum, where should they send their abmahnung? :) In 2008, they could still look up your WHOIS. But this doesn’t work anymore since GDPR.

[echoangle]

I can’t positively claim that’s the case but I wouldn’t be surprised if your registrar has to give out your information if a valid legal claim comes in.

[Teever]

How can your registrar confirm that it is a valid legal claim?

[echoangle]

How does a website determine if a copyright claim for some user-generated content is valid? I think they just look if it’s roughly plausible and then give out your data and let you fight it out.

[lukan]

Authorities have ways to mark their letters. And one usually ignores them at own risk and cost.

[echoangle]

The problem is that an Abmahnung doesn’t really come from some state authority but just a lawyer. Maybe confirming that it’s from a real lawyer would be enough though.

[leobg]

I think you’d need to get a court order. You may be able to get that if you are a direct competitor. Essentially, unless you have a competitor who has a keen interest in making your life miserable, nothing will happen. The days were lawyers themselves could send you ceise and desist letters just to earn some money are long gone.

[gab_]

Yes, of course, but at the moment the site is only there to try out my idea and evaluate its potential.

[farbklang]

That doesn't matter. Impressumspflicht means it's your pflicht to have an Impressum. You can also get an Abmahnung as an individual.

[WhatsName]

That is in principle correct, but since OP is using a throwaway and a know anonymous domain service. As long as he burns bridges after himself (eg. not making it into a adressable business later), there is not individual to deliver a letter to.

Might work for a while, but a dangerous game to play...

[echoangle]

It’s a bit more nuanced, you don’t need a Impressum for purely personal websites without financial background. Evaluating a business idea would probably count as financial motive though, even if it isn’t currently monetized.

[moeffju]

The economics don't matter, everything that is regularly updated or offers a service needs an Impressum. The exception for "purely personal or familial" use clearly doesn't apply here because a service is being provided actively.

[echoangle]

Here’s the law: https://dejure.org/gesetze/TMG/5.html

It mandates a Impressum for „ geschäftsmäßige, in der Regel gegen Entgelt angebotene Telemedien“. If it’s not geschäftsmäßig (Business-Like?), you don’t need an Impressum. If you do it for free without any intention to make money now or later, it’s not geschäftsmäßig.

If I have a blog that I update regularly but don’t have any ads from or take donations for, I don’t need an Impressum.

[slightwinder]

Impressumspflicht only applies for commercial interests. If you are a company informing or even selling something, if you are an influencer making money of yourself, or even if you just have ads on your Pokemon-fanpage, then it counts as commercial interest.

But I don't see any direct monetary value on this site at the moment. There is not even a reputation-gain, as there is no personal information. So Impressumspflicht would not apply.

[lukan]

Likely nothing will happen, but the way it looks, it is not obvious it is only for testing and you now posted it in the open and there seems a comercial intent. The law is quite clear there last time I checked, it needs an adress. (Even for uncomercial projects it seems advisable).