The dispute over rule violations by users of the messaging service Telegram and the service’s compliance with the law in accordance with European requirements is escalating. Telegram is used by more than one million users in Germany and is therefore very successful. However, the provider’s website does not have an imprint and is thus not compliant with the Telemedia Act. Thus, there are no mandatory contact persons under German law. And the accessibility for official inquiries and specifications is not given. Recently, the Federal Ministry of Justice failed to serve a court order on the company’s address in Dubai, which is responsible for Germany.
The Federal Ministry of the Interior has now been able to locate contact persons in the Telegram management through its own investigations. They would start by talking about rule violations and criminal offenses, as well as the applicability of the European legal framework. That in itself is a great success compared to the procedures that have gone nowhere so far, the ministry said.
Telegram is used intensively in Germany, for example, by the so-called lateral thinker scene. In the increasing radicalization, there were calls for criminal acts, up to and including death threats against Saxony’s Prime Minister Kretschmer. Various authorities investigated and court orders were obtained against Telegram. So far, however, they have come to nothing.
In January, Federal Minister of the Interior Nancy Faeser openly threatened to block the Telegram service completely on the network as a last option.
Telegram was founded by Pavel Durov, a Russian IT entrepreneur. The latter had had unpleasant experiences with the Russian authorities regarding his social network VKontakte and subsequently founded Telegram, which organizes hosting abroad. He himself emigrated and now holds a passport from the Caribbean state of St. Kitts and Nevis. He reportedly lives in Dubai. Telegram is presumably not profitable as a service so far, costs were probably borne from Durow’s private assets so far. Only since October 2021 Telegram also publishes advertising on its service, as the only source of revenue. The planned own cryptocurrency to finance the service recently failed due to the intervention of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, funds already collected had to be refunded.
