The German law and its consequences

[spiekey]

Hello List,

we are some kind of reseller and we are facing the problem, that we
would like to block or bounce obvious spam.
Since we are in Germany we are not allowed to silently "drop" mails
(without informing the recipient). I think I read this on heise.de a
while ago.

Anyway...is anyone aware of this problem or can point me to the official
law/paragrah where this is explained in detail?!

Thanks,
Mario

[Stefan Foerster-2]

* "[hidden email]" <[hidden email]> wrote:
> we are some kind of reseller and we are facing the problem, that we
> would like to block or bounce obvious spam.
> Since we are in Germany we are not allowed to silently "drop" mails
> (without informing the recipient). I think I read this on heise.de a
> while ago.
>
> Anyway...is anyone aware of this problem or can point me to the official
> law/paragrah where this is explained in detail?!

See http://www.heinlein-support.de/web/heinlein/download-vortraege/ -
there is a presentation which is a good starting point for your
research.

BITKOM has some information on this matter, too:
http://www.bitkom.org/de/politik/36611_2564.aspx


Cheers
Stefan

[Matthias Schmidt [c]]

Am/On Tue, 24 Jun 2008 13:25:04 +0200 schrieb/wrote [hidden email]:
>we are some kind of reseller and we are facing the problem, that we
>would like to block or bounce obvious spam.
>Since we are in Germany we are not allowed to silently "drop" mails
>(without informing the recipient). I think I read this on heise.de a
>while ago.
>
>Anyway...is anyone aware of this problem or can point me to the official
>law/paragrah where this is explained in detail?!

Heise has a search function ;-)
check this out:
<http://tinyurl.com/6ltawq>
looks like this is a myth, like these "content-footers" in emails....

At least I just drop obvious spam - but I'm not a reseller.

Thanks and all the best
Matthias

[Robert Schetterer]

Matthias Schmidt schrieb:

> Am/On Tue, 24 Jun 2008 13:25:04 +0200 schrieb/wrote [hidden email]:
>> we are some kind of reseller and we are facing the problem, that we
>> would like to block or bounce obvious spam.
>> Since we are in Germany we are not allowed to silently "drop" mails
>> (without informing the recipient). I think I read this on heise.de a
>> while ago.
>>
>> Anyway...is anyone aware of this problem or can point me to the official
>> law/paragrah where this is explained in detail?!
>
> Heise has a search function ;-)
> check this out:
> <http://tinyurl.com/6ltawq>
> looks like this is a myth, like these "content-footers" in emails....
>
> At least I just drop obvious spam - but I'm not a reseller.
>
> Thanks and all the best
> Matthias
>

Hi, you are allowed to drop whatever you want if its your maildomain
and/or mailserver, but you arent allowed to silent drop mail
without permissions if you have contracted maildomains for customers
you can always refuse spam on smtp level i.e with milter
( sending smtp rejects like i. our spamfilter has found your mail spam
etc, but be aware producing backscatter in your setup, if you use after
queue filters )
cause this isnt a silent drop, however even if you have permission from
the maildomain owner and the mailboxusers, dropping and rejecting
spam mail will increase your support level until you want have
possibilities to do spamconfig by the mailboxusers, so think of this.
You can silent drop virus mails, and maybe definitinion boarders
from spam to virus arent clear in any case these days i.e pishing


--
Best Regards

MfG Robert Schetterer

Germany/Munich/Bavaria

[Bill Cole-3]

At 1:25 PM +0200 6/24/08, [hidden email] wrote:
>Hello List,
>
>we are some kind of reseller and we are facing the problem, that we
>would like to block or bounce obvious spam.
>Since we are in Germany we are not allowed to silently "drop" mails
>(without informing the recipient). I think I read this on heise.de a
>while ago.

Do not make legal decisions based on vague recollections of something
said in an IT trade magazine or legal advice from a tech support
mailing list made up of people who mostly are not governed by your
laws and may not be "on your side" even if they do know about the law
where you operate.

>Anyway...is anyone aware of this problem or can point me to the
>official law/paragrah where this is explained in detail?!

You need a qualified German lawyer. You DO NOT need random advice
from unaccountable mail admins on a global mailing list.

--
Bill Cole                                  
[hidden email]

[Michael Katz-2]

Bill Cole wrote:
> At 1:25 PM +0200 6/24/08, [hidden email] wrote:
>> Hello List,
>>
>> we are some kind of reseller and we are facing the problem, that we
>> would like to block or bounce obvious spam.
>> Since we are in Germany we are not allowed to silently "drop" mails
>> (without informing the recipient). I think I read this on heise.de a
>> while ago.

There are many German companies that are quite concerned about this
issue.  Our customers that are concerned about this always quarantine
email that post-queue filters identify as spam.  The issue is that mail
can not be dropped after it is accepted, so rejects are fine so long as
they occur before the message is accepted.

It is possible to use Postfix to scan with content filters during the
DATA phase of the SMTP transaction and reject email before it is fully
accepted. With this method you are still complying with this business
requirement and still offering content based scanning.  However, if your
server is busy you could have big problems trying to use spamassassin
for this so you must look for faster alternatives.

M Katz
http://messagepartners.com

>
> Do not make legal decisions based on vague recollections of something
> said in an IT trade magazine or legal advice from a tech support mailing
> list made up of people who mostly are not governed by your laws and may
> not be "on your side" even if they do know about the law where you operate.
>
>> Anyway...is anyone aware of this problem or can point me to the
>> official law/paragrah where this is explained in detail?!
>
> You need a qualified German lawyer. You DO NOT need random advice from
> unaccountable mail admins on a global mailing list.
>

[Patrick Ben Koetter]

* Bill Cole <[hidden email]>:

> At 1:25 PM +0200 6/24/08, [hidden email] wrote:
>> Hello List,
>>
>> we are some kind of reseller and we are facing the problem, that we  
>> would like to block or bounce obvious spam.
>> Since we are in Germany we are not allowed to silently "drop" mails  
>> (without informing the recipient). I think I read this on heise.de a  
>> while ago.
>
> Do not make legal decisions based on vague recollections of something  
> said in an IT trade magazine or legal advice from a tech support mailing
> list made up of people who mostly are not governed by your laws and may
> not be "on your side" even if they do know about the law where you
> operate.
>
>> Anyway...is anyone aware of this problem or can point me to the  
>> official law/paragrah where this is explained in detail?!
>
> You need a qualified German lawyer. You DO NOT need random advice from
> unaccountable mail admins on a global mailing list.

To add: Unless you are not a lawyer with a valid German approbation, you are
not allowed to give legal advice - including the statements given here. If you
give advice, always tell people that you are not giving legal advice and that
they need to check with their lawyer.

p@rick



--
The Book of Postfix
<http://www.postfix-book.com>
saslfinger (debugging SMTP AUTH):
<http://postfix.state-of-mind.de/patrick.koetter/saslfinger/>

[Jorey Bump]

Patrick Ben Koetter wrote, at 06/24/2008 11:52 AM:

> To add: Unless you are not a lawyer with a valid German approbation, you are
> not allowed to give legal advice - including the statements given here. If you
> give advice, always tell people that you are not giving legal advice and that
> they need to check with their lawyer.

That sounds like legal advice. Are you a lawyer? :)

[Ralf Hildebrandt]

* Patrick Ben Koetter <[hidden email]>:

> To add: Unless you are not a lawyer with a valid German approbation, you are
> not allowed to give legal advice

Side note: This is an anti-jewish law still remaining from Nazi times.

--
Ralf Hildebrandt ([hidden email])          [hidden email]
Postfix - Einrichtung, Betrieb und Wartung       Tel. [phone]
http://www.arschkrebs.de
Is "Sig" copyrighted by www.sig.com?

[Michael Monnerie-4]

On Dienstag, 24. Juni 2008 [hidden email] wrote:
> we are some kind of reseller and we are facing the problem, that we
> would like to block or bounce obvious spam.
> Since we are in Germany we are not allowed to silently "drop" mails
> (without informing the recipient). I think I read this on heise.de a
> while ago.

Simply don't do it.
1) it may make problems
2) customers may be upset

We are a reseller (in Austria), and we do
1) either REJECT during SMTP
2) or ACCEPT and mark as spam, and send to the user. They can create a
filter in their MUA anyway, simply moving all marked spam into whatever
they want.

mfg zmi
--
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// Tel: 0660 / 415 65 31                      .network.your.ideas.
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[Matthias Schmidt [c]]

Am/On Tue, 24 Jun 2008 18:55:03 +0200 schrieb/wrote Ralf Hildebrandt:

>* Patrick Ben Koetter <[hidden email]>:
>
>> To add: Unless you are not a lawyer with a valid German approbation,
you are
>> not allowed to give legal advice
>
>Side note: This is an anti-jewish law still remaining from Nazi times.

How does this come to your mind? This sounds quite polemic to me and btw
it's not really correct.
There are law advisers in Germany, but these people are not allowed to
act for you in front of court.

Thanks and all the best
Matthias

[Robert Felber]

On Tue, Jun 24, 2008 at 05:52:24PM +0200, Patrick Ben Koetter wrote:
> > You need a qualified German lawyer. You DO NOT need random advice from
> > unaccountable mail admins on a global mailing list.
>
> To add: Unless you are not a lawyer with a valid German approbation, you are
> not allowed to give legal advice - including the statements given here. If you
> give advice, always tell people that you are not giving legal advice and that
> they need to check with their lawyer.

This has recently changed (reso. will change on 1st Jul 2008):

http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rechtsdienstleistungsgesetz

It will be even legal to make business with legal advice for non-lawyers.


--
    Robert Felber (PGP: 896CF30B)
    Munich, Germany