Yahoo! Germany's No-Balls-Policy

We had to wait long, but the explanation is there:

The decision to change the Flickr experience in Germany was never about censorship - it was made to try to ensure that Yahoo! Germany was in compliance with local legal restrictions. In fact, we're all getting really uncomfortable that the words "flickr" and "censorship" are being jammed together with increasing frequency because that is _so far_ from the direction we're trying to move in. The central problem is that Germany has much more stringent age verification laws than its neighboring countries and specifies much harsher penalties, including jail time, for those with direct responsibility (in our case, it would be our colleagues in the German offices and we're not willing to make a call that has that kind of consequence for them). [...]

Sadly in confirms my initial thoughts about the reason which I voiced over at Robert Basic's blog and in a way at Cem Basman's blog: Someone at Yahoo! Germany, potentially someone who couldn't care less about Flickr, suddenly found himself in the position where his head would roll when there is trouble. And to be rather safe than sorry, they used the sub-par filtering system to ensure a certain level of safety against this possibility. And while all this is happening, many people are not too happy about the decision and continue their protest in very artistic ways. And I'm still waiting for one of those International-Business-School-Greaseballs someone at Yahoo! Germany to step out and take the heat.