Legal
Imprint
This imprint is the statutory provider identification (Impressum) for blockquote.io, required by § 5 of the German Digital Services Act (DDG) and § 18 (2) of the German State Media Treaty (MStV). Updated 2026-08-23.
TL;DR: Arne Kellmann, Odenwaldstr. 134L, 64372 Ober-Ramstadt, Germany, operates blockquote.io and answers for its content. The statutory disclosures in full:
- Operator (§ 5 DDG): Arne Kellmann, Odenwaldstr. 134L, 64372 Ober-Ramstadt, Germany
- Contact: hello@arnekellmann.de
- VAT ID (§ 27a UStG): DE292592171
- Responsible for content (§ 18 Abs. 2 MStV): Arne Kellmann, same address
- Consumer dispute resolution (§ 36 VSBG): neither willing nor obliged to participate
Who operates blockquote.io (information according to § 5 DDG)?
Arne Kellmann, Odenwaldstr. 134L, 64372 Ober-Ramstadt, Germany, operates blockquote.io as a sole operator — no company, no register entry, no share capital stands behind the site.
Arne Kellmann
Odenwaldstr. 134L
64372 Ober-Ramstadt
Germany
§ 5 of the Digitale-Dienste-Gesetz (DDG) requires this disclosure of name and postal address for every business-like online service directed at Germany. The DDG took effect on 14 May 2024 and replaced the Telemediengesetz (TMG); the imprint duty moved from § 5 TMG to § 5 DDG with its substance intact. The address above is a full postal address, not a P.O. box, because § 5 DDG demands an address at which the operator can be served legal documents.
For a sole operator without a registered company, § 5 DDG boils down to four disclosures: the operator's full name, a serviceable postal address, an email address for fast electronic contact, and the VAT identification number where the tax office has issued one. Disclosures for supervised professions, commercial registers, or licensed broadcasters do not apply here, because none of those categories covers Blockquote — which is why this imprint lists no register number, no supervisory authority, and no professional chamber.
Where must an imprint appear on a website?
German case law on § 5 DDG requires the imprint to be easily recognizable, directly reachable, and permanently available ("leicht erkennbar, unmittelbar erreichbar und ständig verfügbar"). A footer link labeled "Impressum" or "Imprint", reachable from every page in at most two clicks, satisfies this standard. blockquote.io links this page from the footer of every page, and the disclosures sit in the first screen of the page body, above the explanatory sections.
Why is this imprint written in English?
Blockquote addresses an international audience, so the whole site, including this imprint, is written in English. German law still governs the disclosures, because the operator is established in Germany — the imprint duty follows the operator's place of establishment, not the language of the site. The statutory terms therefore appear in German (Digitale-Dienste-Gesetz, Medienstaatsvertrag, Umsatzsteuergesetz, Verbraucherstreitbeilegungsgesetz) with their official citations next to the English explanations, so both German lawyers and international readers can verify each disclosure against its source.
How can you reach the operator?
Email reaches the operator at hello@arnekellmann.de. § 5 DDG names email as the canonical fast electronic contact channel, and this address is the single contact channel for legal notices, privacy requests, and support questions about Blockquote. Messages in English or German both work — the operator is a native German speaker who publishes in English.
The operator also publishes his professional identity on three external profiles:
arnekellmann.de (personal site),
LinkedIn, and
GitHub. These are the same three profiles listed as
sameAs in this site's Organization structured data, so the identity a reader
sees here matches the identity machines read from the page markup.
What is the VAT identification number?
VAT ID according to § 27a of the German VAT Act (UStG): DE292592171.
The Federal Central Tax Office (Bundeszentralamt für Steuern) issues this number to German businesses for intra-EU transactions. § 27a UStG defines the number itself; § 5 DDG requires publishing it in the imprint whenever one has been issued. A VAT ID identifies a business for cross-border VAT purposes — it is distinct from the national tax number, which German operators are not required to publish.
Who is responsible for content according to § 18 Abs. 2 MStV?
Arne Kellmann
Odenwaldstr. 134L
64372 Ober-Ramstadt
Germany
The Medienstaatsvertrag (MStV), Germany's State Media Treaty, has been in force since 7 November 2020 and replaced the earlier Rundfunkstaatsvertrag. Its § 18 (2) requires online services with journalistic-editorial content to name a responsible person with full name and address. Blockquote publishes an editorial guide on AI citability, so this imprint names Arne Kellmann as that responsible person.
Does the operator take part in consumer dispute resolution?
No. The operator is neither willing nor obliged to take part in dispute resolution proceedings before a consumer arbitration board (§ 36 VSBG).
The Verbraucherstreitbeilegungsgesetz (VSBG) of 2016 requires website operators who serve consumers to state whether they participate in consumer arbitration; the statement above satisfies that duty. One related disclosure disappeared recently: the EU's online dispute resolution (ODR) platform was discontinued on 20 July 2025, so this imprint no longer links to it — imprints that still do point at a dead service.
The § 36 VSBG duty applies to operators whose website or standard terms address consumers, and the statement must say clearly whether the operator will take part in arbitration. A plain refusal, as stated above, is lawful: § 36 VSBG demands transparency about participation, not participation itself.
Which laws require this imprint page?
Four German provisions shape this page. The table maps each provision to what it demands and to the section of this imprint that satisfies it:
| Provision | What it requires | Where this page satisfies it |
|---|---|---|
| § 5 DDG | Operator name, postal address, and fast electronic contact | Operator and contact sections above |
| § 18 Abs. 2 MStV | Named person responsible for journalistic-editorial content | Responsibility section above |
| § 27a UStG | Defines the VAT ID that § 5 DDG requires to be published | VAT section: DE292592171 |
| § 36 VSBG | Statement on participation in consumer arbitration | Dispute resolution section above |
Breaching the imprint duty is an administrative offence in Germany and a frequent trigger for competitor cease-and-desist letters (Abmahnungen), which is why the disclosures sit at the top of this page rather than behind a further click.
What liability applies to external links?
Despite careful content control, no liability is assumed for the contents of external links. The operators of linked pages are solely responsible for their content.
This page links to gesetze-im-internet.de, the official statute portal of the German Federal Ministry of Justice, for the full text of the DDG, the UStG, and the VSBG, and to the operator's own profiles on arnekellmann.de, LinkedIn, and GitHub. The statute links point at primary legal sources so readers can verify every legal claim this imprint makes.
What is Blockquote, the service this imprint covers?
Blockquote is an AI-citability scanner: it scores any public URL from 0 to 100 across 34 checks — 29 deterministic checks on markup, structure, and metadata, plus 5 LLM-assisted checks on the prose — and returns concrete fixes that make pages easier for AI answer engines to cite. Arne Kellmann builds and runs the service alone, from Germany, on Cloudflare's edge network. The terms of service, the privacy policy, and the refund policy state the contractual side of the service; this imprint states who stands behind it. The about page states the method behind the score and how Blockquote audits its own pages, including this one.