
German Redditors said Vodafone does that often. Alternatively, they might throttle your bandwidth once you consume too much data. If ISPs catch you torrenting in Germany, they might threaten to cancel your service if you don’t stop. We saw German torrent users mention Torrent-Logger and Hash on Reddit. And they might also use third-party torrent monitoring tools. Also, they’ll monitor your traffic to spot signs of torrenting – like simultaneous upload streams and high bandwidth usage.

They’ll check your DNS queries to see if you’re connecting to torrent sites. German ISPs can also monitor your traffic to see if you’re downloading German torrents.

On average, the costs amount to €1,000 (around $1,176) per file. In Germany, torrent cease and desist letters are called “Abmahnung,” or “Unterlassungserklärung.” They usually say you need to pay compensation and reimbursement fees. Once that happens, they’ll send you a cease and desist letter with an invoice for the amount you have to pay. The law authorizes them to do that, so your ISP will almost always comply with their requests. Then, they send your ISP letters asking for your personal details. A simple IP lookup tool is all that’s needed to tell them which ISP the IP belongs to. Once they have your IP, the agencies and lawyers use it to find your ISP.
