Facts, not panic

Received a letter from a German law firm? Read first, then act.

In Germany, an Abmahnung is a formal cease-and-desist letter, usually sent by a lawyer, that demands you stop an alleged legal violation, sign a declaration to that effect and pay the sender's legal fees. In recent years, mass Abmahnungen over Google Fonts, cookie banners or supposedly trivial violations have hit thousands of website owners, including foreign businesses with German visitors, and many of them unjustly. We explain in plain terms how these letters work, what the courts have said about them and what you should actually do now.

See the first steps Book a consultation

Typical warning signs of a dubious mass Abmahnung

The letter arrived suspiciously soon after a small technical detail (e.g. Google Fonts, IP logging, a missing cookie-consent option) and demands a fixed, usually modest sum (often €100–500).
The text reads like a template: very similar wording turns up online from a great many other recipients.
It threatens you with a short deadline and "higher costs otherwise", yet suggests that an unprompted payment will "settle" the matter.
In extortion emails: the sender claims to know your passwords or to have access to your camera, and demands payment in Bitcoin.

First aid

Five steps when the letter lands in your inbox

Stay calm, don't pay straight away

The psychological pressure of the deadline is part of the business model. Paying within 24 hours is practically never necessary.

Check the sender and the pattern

Is this a law firm that sends out a striking number of identically worded letters? That is a strong indication of abuse of rights under Section 8c UWG (German Act Against Unfair Competition).

Don't sign anything without having it checked

A cease-and-desist declaration (Unterlassungserklärung) can bind you for years. Don't sign anything until someone with the right expertise has seen the letter.

Fix the technical issue, if there is one

Regardless of the letter itself: if your site really does load Google Fonts externally, for example, hosting them locally is worth doing anyway.

Get expert advice

Especially with genuine injunction claims or repeated letters, a brief assessment by a lawyer is worthwhile, and often cheaper than you might think.

Structural prevention

Common-sense protection for website owners

Trivial mass Abmahnungen bank on the fact that taking legal action costs the sender little, while to you, the recipient, it looks unpleasantly expensive. A clean corporate structure changes that calculation. Not as a hiding place for unfair conduct, but as a sensible precaution for honest website owners who simply don't want to be shaken down over a trifle.

What this means

Instead of your private name and home address in the Impressum (the legal notice German law requires on websites), a company of your own is listed as the operator of your website. For most mass senders, the effort of enforcing a trivial claim internationally is out of all proportion to what they could gain.

Who this is not for

This offer is not aimed at companies that systematically engage in unfair competition themselves, or that want to use straw-man structures to evade genuine claims by third parties. We are not the right address for that.

View the Series LLC → Check your Impressum for free

Please note: this is neither a guarantee nor legal advice. A foreign corporate structure does not prevent legitimate claims; it merely makes uneconomical mass proceedings more difficult. Genuine, well-founded claims can still be enforced in court, including internationally.

Frequently asked questions

FAQ

Do I have to pay a Google Fonts Abmahnung right away?

No. Several German courts (including the Regional Court of Munich I, the Regional Court of Baden-Baden and the Local Court of Ludwigsburg) have ruled that mass-mailed Google Fonts Abmahnungen are an abuse of rights. Don't pay in a hurry; check the sender, the demand and the pattern of the letter first.

What is an abusive Abmahnung?

Under Section 8c of the German Act Against Unfair Competition (UWG), abuse is presumed in case of doubt if the claim is asserted mainly to generate claims for reimbursement of costs or contractual penalties rather than to stop an actual infringement.

What should I do about a sextortion email?

Don't pay, don't reply, keep the email as evidence and report it to the police. These emails are sent automatically to huge numbers of addresses and, in the overwhelming majority of cases, are not based on any real access to your data.