4.6.
In view of the content of the letter of April 14, 2015, and the fact that it was sent by a lawyer (and therefore not by a random visitor to the websites), MaRan should have taken the request to remove the fake profile and block its creator seriously at that time, and not only on May 10, 2015. The court finds that MaRan acted unlawfully towards [the claimant] by not immediately proceeding to remove the fake profile and block its creator after April 14, 2015, even though it had sufficient information to do so (as evidenced by its response of May 10, 2015).
4.8.
It has been established that a fake profile of [the claimant] appeared on the websites kinkytijd.nl and chattijd.nl, which are managed by MaRan. It is sufficiently plausible that the information contained in this fake profile, considered in isolation, is unlawful and harmful to [the claimant], as this profile wrongly gave the impression that [the claimant] was willing to engage in sexual encounters with third parties. The plaintiff had a genuine interest in obtaining the name and address details and/or the IP address of the creator of the fake profile, in order to enable her to potentially trace the identity of the creator and put an end to the unlawful and harmful situation towards the plaintiff. In view of the criminal court's order for her brother-in-law to pay compensation for immaterial damage, it is clear that [the claimant] suffered damage (in the form of suffering) as a result of the fake profile. Furthermore, [the claimant] has not sufficiently refuted that she sought help from the police, but that the police (or, through them, the public prosecutor) did not proceed to request the name and address details and/or IP address from MaRan. In light of this, it is plausible that in this specific case there was no less drastic option for obtaining the name and address details or the IP address. The fact that [D] did obtain this information without MaRan's help does not alter this, especially since involving [D] is also a drastic measure and it is by no means certain that he would honor every request such as that of [the plaintiff]. Finally, the court is of the opinion that, in view of the obvious interest of [the claimant] in putting an end to a situation that is harmful to her, MaRan, as administrator, has not put forward any compelling interests that would mean that, when weighing up the interests involved, the interests of [the claimant] should not prevail. Although MaRan must protect the privacy of the users of its websites, this interest is less important when it comes to a user who creates a harmful fake profile and thereby commits a crime. In view of the above considerations, the court finds that the criteria referred to in the Lycos/Plessers judgment have been met and that MaRan, as administrator of the websites kinkytijd.nl and chattijd.nl, acted unlawfully by not disclosing to [the plaintiff], at her request, the known name and address details and/or IP address of the person who created the fake profile.
