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If content that is harmful to young people is available on the Internet, it then becomes necessary to ask who can be obliged, under what circumstances, to ensure that young people do not access the content concerned. This has been clarified in three recent court decisions. Firstly, on 6 December 2007 (case no. 10 ME 241/07), the Niedersächsische Oberverwaltungsgericht (Lower Saxony Supreme Administrative Court - OVG Lüneburg ) confirmed an injunction granted by the Niedersächsische Landesmedienanstalt (Lower Saxony regional media authority - NLM). The NLM had forbidden the provider of a portal...

The Council of Europe’s Committee of Ministers’ (CM) recently adopted a Recommendation on measures to promote the public service value of the Internet. Its central objective is to prompt States authorities, where appropriate in cooperation with all interested parties, to take all necessary measures to promote the public service value of the Internet, inter alia by: - “upholding human rights, democracy and the rule of law […] and promoting social cohesion, respect for cultural diversity and trust” in respect of the Internet and other ICTs; - setting out parameters for the roles and responsibilities...

In parallel with the increased use of co-regulation systems in the context of the protection of minors, a legal requirement has been introduced to evaluate the effectiveness of these systems. In preparation for the evaluation by the legislature, the Hans Bredow Institute (HBI) examined, on behalf of the Federal Ministry for Family Affairs, Senior Citizens, Women and Youth (BMFSFJ) and the Länder, whether and to what extent youth media protection works effectively. According to the results of the study, the new approach to youth media protection established in 2003 (see IRIS 2002-9: 15) has improved...

In a recommendation dated 22 August 2007, the Consiliul Naţional al Audiovizualului (National Audiovisual Council - CNA), the Romanian regulator for the electronic media, expressed its concern that sports news in Romanian television programmes, including the programmes of the public broadcasters, often contained reports on violence in football stadiums and aggressive statements and examples of vulgar behaviour by fans. “The excessive media coverage of these rare but regrettable occurrences is leading to their dominating the total time available for sports news.” The CNA accordingly issued a reminder...

The leading German mobile telephone companies intend to work with the Freiwillige Selbstkontrolle Multimedia-Diensteanbieter e.V. (Association for Voluntary Self-Regulation of Multimedia Service Providers - FSM), which was set up by media associations and online marketing companies in 1997, to take action against violent and pornographic videos sent to the mobile telephones of children and young people. On the initiative of the Rhineland-Palatinate Youth Ministry, the companies have signed a voluntary undertaking according to which the network operators Debitel, E-Plus, Mobilcom, Talkline, T-Mobile,...