Legal actions due to content on a homepage must be directed towards the domain name holder. DENIC as a registry is not the appropriate contact in these situations. This has been determined by the Landgericht Wiesbaden, which has thereby negated any responsibility of DENIC for the content of web pages. It was the first court decision in Germany addressing this point.

In the concrete case employees of a financial services company have demanded from DENIC the deletion of a domain name, because the homepage running under this domain allegedly contained insults directed towards them. DENIC were able to make access to these pages more difficult if they were to delete the domain name.

DENIC argues that a content check of web pages is not possible and also not desirable. The only responsibility of DENIC is the administration of domain names. If any legal infringements are supposed to have occurred, the affected party must directly address the domain name holder. "It is devious to sue DENIC for the possible abuse of a legally unproblematic service, such as the registration of a domain name. Otherwise it would be also possible to sue the postal service or to order a telephone company to shut down a phone link, because there have been insults in a letter or phone call", explains DENIC's In-house Counsel Stephan Welzel.

The court agreed completely with DENIC's legal conception and did not issue an injunction. DENIC has no part of the alleged legal infringement and does not contribute in a crucial way to its distribution on the objectionable homepage. Additionally the infringement would persist even if the domain name were deleted, because the web pages would still be accessible via an IP number or a link from another domain name.