An impressum (from Latin impressum, "the impressed, engraved, pressed in, impression", engl. imprint) is the term given to a legally mandated statement of the ownership and authorship of a document, which must be included in books, newspapers, magazines and websites published in Germany and certain other German-speaking countries, such as Austria and Switzerland.
There is no equivalent legislation in English-speaking countries such as the United Kingdom and the United States, and therefore no consistent legal term is used in English-language media. Facebook, however, asks users to add an impressum for user-created pages. Outside of Facebook, the closest English terms for impressum are:
None of these terms is an exact equivalent in all contexts. The terms "masthead" and "colophon" apply to printed publications only and are not commonly used on English-language websites, while "site notice" is website-specific and "legal notice" or "legal disclosure" are rarely found in printed works. An "imprint" in publishing may also mean a brand name under which a work is published, and so may not be understood to mean an Impressum.
Webpages
The Telemediengesetz (German meaning "Telemedia Act") requires that German websites must disclose information about the publisher, including their name and address, telephone number or e-mail address, trade registry number, VAT number, and other information depending on the type of company. German websites are defined as being published by individuals or organisations that are based in Germany, so an Impressum is required regardless of whether a site is in the .de domain.
This law has created privacy concerns for individuals who maintain blogs or personal homepages. The law has also caused lawyers to scrutinise websites for this information and send cease-and-desist letters to their maintainers in case it is missing. Facebook has added a section in the public page settings for adding an Impressum.