A XING profile may be blocked for the following reasons (extract from our General Terms & Conditions):
4. General obligations of the user and special provisions for using the social network
"4.1 The user is obliged
(a) to provide only true and non-misleading statements along with its real name, and to refrain from using pseudonyms or pen names,
(b) to only use as the profile picture for its social network user profile a photo where the user can be clearly identified. The user warrants and represents that the public display of the profile photo delivered by the user to the XING Websites is not prohibited by applicable law. The user shall not use photos or images of any person other than the user, nor of non-existent persons or other beings (such as animals, imaginary creatures, etc.), nor use logos as its profile picture.
(c) to comply with all applicable legislation and respect all third-party rights when using XING and the content served on XING Websites. In particular, the user shall not
- use any insulting or defamatory contents, regardless of whether said contents are directed at another user or XING personnel or other companies,
- use any pornographic, abusive, immoral or violence-glorifying materials or any contents that violate any applicable legislation for the protection of minors; or advertise or promote, offer or distribute any pornographic, abusive, immoral or violence-glorifying product or products which do not comply with any applicable legislation for the protection of minors,
- unreasonably annoy, particularly with spam, any other user (cf. Section 7 of the German Unfair Competition Act - UWG),
- use without authorisation any contents protected by law (e.g. by copyright, trademark, patent, utility patent, or design patent laws), or advertise, promote, offer or distribute any goods or services protected by law, or
- use or promote any commercial practices considered unfair competition, including progressive customer acquisition practices (such as chain distribution systems, multilevel selling or pyramid sales)
(d) to refrain from engaging in any of the following annoying activities, even if they do not constitute a breach of any applicable laws:
- Sending chain letters
- Performing, advertising and promoting any form of structural distribution measures (such as multi-level marketing or multi-level network marketing) and
- Communicating in any insinuating or sexual way (suggestive or explicit).
4.2 The user is prohibited from the following:
(a) Employing any mechanisms, software or scripts when using XING Websites. The user is also prohibited from directly or indirectly advertising or distributing such mechanisms, software or scripts. The user may, however, use, advertise or distribute interfaces or software that have been authorised by XING
(b) Blocking, overwriting, modifying and copying any contents of the XING Websites, unless said actions are necessary for the proper use of XING
(c) Distributing or publicly disclosing the contents of any of the XING Websites or any other user, unless such a distribution or public disclosure is intended within the scope of the respective XING application, or unless the other user consented to said distribution or public disclosure, and/or
(d) Performing any actions which may impair the operability of XING's infrastructure, particularly actions which may overload said infrastructure.
4.3 XING is not obliged to serve data provided by the user and/or information to other users if said data and/or information is not in line with Sections 4.1 and 4.2. XING is entitled to remove from the XING Websites any data and/or information that is prohibited according to Sections 4.1 and 4.2, without notifying the user in advance."