Im­pres­sums for Facebook pages

Facebook’s recent addition of an ‘Impressum’ field to their pages is a valuable resource for business owners, enabling them to integrate a site notice into their social media platform. While supplying further contact details can be of immense help to all busi­ness­es, this extra text field is par­tic­u­lar­ly helpful to those with offices in German-speaking countries, where providing this in­for­ma­tion is required by law. In Germany, Austria, and Switzer­land, failing to include an impressum could result in dis­ci­pli­nary action. This has caused sig­nif­i­cant problems for some companies in the past, prompting Facebook to finally introduce the ‘Impressum’ text field in 2014, which was specially designed to cater to these laws, giving all users a simple and legally wa­ter­tight area to include all the required in­for­ma­tion.

In the United States, Canada, and the United Kingdom, im­pres­sums (more commonly referred to as site notices, legal notices, or mastheads) are optional and rarely im­ple­ment­ed, but every website for busi­ness­es based in German-speaking countries requires an impressum. The German Telemedia Act (TMG) specifies exactly which in­for­ma­tion should be included and how it can be presented. The oblig­a­tion to provide iden­ti­fi­ca­tion applies to all ‘business-ori­en­tat­ed’ online presences, except for purely private pages. Not all business owners are aware that this law also concerns social media presences, but even on Facebook, busi­ness­es are legally obliged to present their contact in­for­ma­tion in a manner that is ‘easily visible, directly ac­ces­si­ble, and always available’ to users. Check out our guidebook for further in­for­ma­tion on impressum laws.

For many years, there was no des­ig­nat­ed space for business owners to include an impressum in their Facebook profiles, which often re­strict­ed the vis­i­bil­i­ty of that in­for­ma­tion. The platform finally amended this in 2014 by in­te­grat­ing a text field for im­pres­sums for all users who wish or need to include one. This can be found under ‘Page Info’ alongside all other crucial text fields. The impressum section allows users 2000 char­ac­ters for entering the required data. If the text is too long, it will be shortened and a link to the complete impressum will be added. This text field is now provided for all business-ori­en­tat­ed profiles and pages.

Because of the limited space in Facebook’s impressum text box, it’s now become common practice to add an external link to the impressum page of your business website. If you decide to go down this route, you should link directly to your impressum, and not just to the website’s homepage. Ad­di­tion­al­ly, it’s important to indicate clearly that the link leads to the impressum; links should therefore always be named and labelled clearly to ensure vis­i­bil­i­ty and ac­ces­si­bil­i­ty. You could also include a relevant anchor text, ap­pro­pri­ate URL, and/or an ex­plana­to­ry note. 

The impressum itself should also include a note that the same in­for­ma­tion applies to all your social media platforms, and provide links to these sites (including Facebook, Twitter, Google+, etc.).

With the in­te­grat­ed fields, it’s now easy for Facebook page operators to create a Facebook impressum in com­pli­ance with current laws. However, it’s important for business owners to stay aware of current leg­is­la­tion as well as any possible changes. Please note that this article does not con­sti­tute as legal advice; should you need further aid, we recommend you seek the help of an ex­pe­ri­enced attorney.