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The term "disclaimer" is the noun form of the English word "to disclaim". You can often find disclaimers in the Impressum of websites. The person responsible for the website wants to achieve a disclaimer by distancing himself from all contents of external links on his site, for example:
Liability notice
Despite careful control of the content, we do not assume any liability for the content of external links. The operators of the linked pages are solely responsible for their content.
On many Internet pages, reference is made in the disclaimer to a judgment of the Hamburg Regional Court from 1998 (file number: 312 O 85/98), for example:
In its decision of May 12, 1998, the Hamburg Regional Court ruled that the inclusion of links also leads to co-responsibility of the material offered via these links. This can be prevented only by the fact that one dissociates oneself expressly from these contents. For all links on this homepage: I dissociate myself hereby expressly from all contents of all linked sides on my homepage and do not make myself these contents too own.
The fact that many disclaimers are simply copied and inserted into the Impressum pages without much thought and checking can be seen from the misspelling of the word "verantworten", in the disclaimer "verantwortern". If you enter the misspelled word in a search engine (for example in Bing: +verantwortern), you will get over 30,000 hits.
Of course, no one can blanketly distance themselves from their own actions, disclaim any responsibility, and exclude liability.
Thus, liability for damage caused intentionally or negligently cannot be excluded by simply stating "I am not liable." In case of doubt, a court decides whether one is liable for a damage or not.
In contract law, it is possible to exclude or limit liability (liability clause). However, opening an Internet page does not usually result in a contract, since a contract is always concluded in advance. However, even in a valid contract, legal claims for damages, for example, cannot be limited (clause prohibitions).
The fact that one should not insult readers on an Internet page, publish insulting things about third parties or intentionally publish false information to the detriment of others is certainly obvious.
Most disclaimers are written because the aforementioned court ruling was often misunderstood. In addition, many authors simply copy without reading the ruling.
The judgment states:
*The defendant, after another legal dispute had preceded between the parties, had links included on his Internet homepage ... to information about the plaintiff available on the Internet, ... .
The plaintiff considers this "reporting" to be immoral and considers his general right of personality to have been violated. The defendant is liable, since it made itself by the reference to the Web page ... the remarks there too own.
(The defendant means,) ... he opened a "market of the opinions" by the compilation of the remarks made about the plaintiff.
Furthermore it made clear by admission of a liability-free clause that it does not take over any responsibility. For the rest, he was exercising his right to freedom of expression.*
Briefly summarized:
The defendant is the person responsible for the website. He had published links to external pages, the content of which the plaintiff considers to be a violation of his personal rights. It is therefore a matter of insult.
The defendant has dissociated himself from the external content in a disclaimer.