Report illegal content

What this is for

We store and display content that other people put there: public GeGroups archives, published advisories, contributor submissions and public forms. Under Art. 16 of the Digital Services Act anyone may tell us that a specific item is illegal, and we have to act on it.

This is not the channel for a security vulnerability. Those go to the disclosure policy, which routes to people who triage them. Sending a takedown request there puts it in a queue built for something else.

It is also not the channel for a complaint that something is merely wrong, rude or disagreeable. Illegal has a meaning, and content that is lawful stays up.

How to report

Email egelhaus@ennogelhaus.de with "Illegal content" in the subject line.

You do not need an account, a form, a lawyer or a particular format. If you can only reach us another way, the addresses in the legal notice all arrive with the same person.

What to include

A report is more likely to be actionable — and, under Art. 16(3), is what gives us actual knowledge — if it contains:

1. Why you believe it is illegal. A sufficiently substantiated explanation, not just an assertion.
2. Exactly where it is. The URL, or enough to identify the item precisely. "Somewhere in the archive" cannot be acted on.
3. Your name and email, unless the report concerns an offence under Articles 3 to 7 of Directive 2011/93/EU, where you may report anonymously.
4. A statement that you believe, in good faith, that the information in the report is accurate and complete.

We will not treat a report as insufficient because it is informal. We will come back to you where something essential is missing.

What we do with it

We confirm receipt without undue delay, to the email address you gave.

We decide in a timely, diligent, non-arbitrary and objective way, and a person makes the decision. We do not use automated means to decide these.

We tell you the outcome, with reasons, and tell you what routes of redress exist.

We tell the person who posted it as well, with a statement of reasons under Art. 17: what we did, why, whether it was on a report or on our own initiative, whether automated means were used, the legal or contractual ground we relied on, and how they can challenge it.

Where the decision is that the content stays up, the reporter gets reasons too. A channel that only explains removals is a channel that has already decided.

Challenging a decision

If you disagree — whether you reported the content or posted it — reply to the decision and say why. It goes to a person, and where we got it wrong we reverse it and say so.

This is without prejudice to your other routes: you may go to court, and you may use an out-of-court dispute settlement body certified under Art. 21 DSA. We are not obliged to accept any particular body and will say so at the time rather than leave you to find out.

Misuse

Where somebody repeatedly sends manifestly unfounded reports, or repeatedly posts manifestly illegal content, we may suspend handling their reports or their account for a reasonable period after warning them, under Art. 23 DSA. "Manifestly" is doing work in that sentence: a report that turns out to be wrong is not misuse, and being wrong about the law is not misuse either.

Contact point

For users, the address above.

For authorities — Member State authorities, the Commission, the Board — the same address. We are a sole proprietorship and there is no separate department; saying otherwise would be a fiction the first email exposes. Correspondence is accepted in German and English.

Orders from authorities

Where we receive an order to act against illegal content under Art. 9, or an order to provide information under Art. 10, we act on it and inform the affected user of the order and its effect, unless the order says otherwise or the law forbids it.

What we are not

We are a hosting service. We do not operate an online platform of the kind that triggers Chapter III Section 3, we are not a very large online platform, and none of the services here qualifies as an online marketplace. Where that changes, this page changes with it.