Last but not least: Lawyers on the social web

The newly founded "ky-center for social media law" clarifies legal issues in connection with social media applications. These include questions on account seizure, imprint obligations and monitoring duties. In February 2012, the seizure of an account was ordered for the first time, as the research center writes on Presseportal.ch. This resulted in terminations due to Facebook postings and profile owners were convicted of failing to provide a legal notice and unfair competition. As social networks are constantly implementing new functions, this often leads to new uncertainties in the legal assessment of commercial applications on the social web, writes the research center. One of the reasons for this is that lengthy legislative processes further complicate the situation.

The aim now is to increase legal certainty in this area. The Center was therefore founded under the leadership of Liechtenstein lawyer Stefan Ritter with headquarters in Vaduz and contact points in Munich and Vienna. The Center is supported by international advisory boards. These are to provide the Ky-center with impulses based on their different professional focuses under the academic chairmanship of internet lawyer Wolfgang Zankl.

In view of the impossibility of completely deleting a Facebook profile once it has been set up, there may be a legal basis for achieving this via account seizure after all. Facebook could also advertise this on the subject of data protection: "You can't delete your Facebook profile, but you can have it seized".

Ritter and Zankl will provide input on the topic at the kick-off events in Vienna, Vaduz and Munich.

- November 14, 4.30 p.m., e-center, Graben 17/10, 1010 Vienna.
- November 21, 4 p.m., Gasthof Löwen, Herrengasse 35, 9490 Vaduz.
- November 22, 4 p.m., Faktor Zehn, Neumarkter Straße 71,
81673 Munich.