DoubleDTown

Don't blow off your school's annual "how to handle media / Internet" lecture.  Even if you don't agree with what you hear, it's a good resource. My advice: old enough for a smart phone when they seem trustworthy enough not to lose it or break it.  That varies from kid to kid. Parental control can include insisting on having password for the phone and any apps installed, limiting what types of apps are installed, and requiring phone to charge in the hallway or living room over night and not in the kid's room.  

All German lawyers are also required since 2016 to have a "besondere elektronische Ausweis" which is supposed to provide super secure communication abilities between lawyers and between lawyers and courts.  When email just won't do, there's the beA.  it also requires a special card, and a card reader.  And a fee has to be paid each year to the Notar Kammer which is the authority that oversees the system.  And when it didn't work the first year, and the Rechtsanwalt Kammer said "um, it doesn't work yet so you don't have to use it yet", the Notar Kammer still insisted on being paid because it had done it's job of overseeing the system.  So German. And 99% of the messages I get are things from the local state Rechtsanwaltskammer that announce upcoming lectures and could have been sent in a normal email.  https://bea.brak.de/

  I think they'll still take it back.

  During the course of a German naturalization 'ceremony' I recently attended, the German government representative said a few things relevant to this discussion. 1. German law changes all the time, keep on top of it. 2. foreign laws change all the time, keep on top of them. 3. she told an Argentine woman who was being naturalized as a German citizen that if the Argentine woman went to the Argentine consulate before her children (who are currently German citizens) turned 18 and signed up her children as Argentine citizens that regardless of whatever the grounds might be for Argentina giving the children Argentine citizenship that it would not affect their existing German citizenship because the kids were under 18 and thus couldn't make their own decisions and thus the decision to acquire (on whatever grounds) the Argentine citizenship couldn't be held against them.  Whereas, if one of the others of us in the room went to the Argentine consulate and applied to become citizens of Argentina we would lose our German citizenship simply for saying we want to voluntarily become citizens of another country.  But the German government woman cautioned, that's the law right now and things may have been different before and might be different in the future. 4. She said this may sound silly, but she has had several instances where she did a naturalization process more than once for the same person because the person had accidentally managed to lose their German citizenship after being naturalized.

I am pleased to report Penny does have peanut butter again.

  I also did get a letter from the consulate, auf deutsch, that the local Buergeramt accepted.  But it was really pulling teeth to get it.  Twice Berlin USCS wrote me an email in English confirming the fee and saying the Buergeramt could contact them via email for questions.  After my third request, Berlin apparently referred my request to a "Passport & Citizenship Unit" in Frankfurt which sent me a letter auf deutsch confirming the U.S. fee for relinquishing.    

Don't you need to be a Meister at something before you start offering "beauty" services?    In any case, while i can appreciate the desire to be one's own boss, I'd suggest starting out as an employee somewhere as that may be the most painless way to learn the ropes of the German beauty business.

  I have done NO research, but my understanding has been that (1) there is an embassy in Berlin and consular offices in Berlin and other cities; (ii) it's a consular office that will handle something like this; (iii) not all the consular offices handle all issues; (iv) consular offices handle things in their region - for example, someone who lives in Berlin and wants to renew a U.S. passport must go to the Berlin consulate as a U.S. consulate in another region of Germany would refer them to the consulate in Berlin. 

I agree with Nina.  I've had Netherlands-sourced "Erdnusscreme", in a glass jar, from both Kaufland and Lidl, and neither were as good as Penny's Mike Mitchel's peanut butter was.  :-(  

yeah, the whole issue of privacy protection even for the convicted is nuts.    But, then, see also what happened with Germany's Streetview - so full of blur-outs and now super outdated and likely never to get updated

  our local Penny no longer carries PB.  it literally filled the shelf space with more Nutella.  Nutella next to Nutella.  No PB.   on the plus side, it does still carry maple syrup.  it's not from Vermont though, only Canada stuff.

our local Penny has been out of PB for weeks, but the Netto ("orange Netto", not "Hunde Netto") nearby still has it.  I don't know if Netto has a different supplier or if Netto customers don't eat as much PB.

  No, that's not what I'm saying. (and I'm saying it based on U.S. experience)  What I'm saying is courts and law enforcement aren't much interested in enforcing trademark protection laws.  But, trademark owners are interested.  You probably have a civil claim against the seller that he sold you something different than what he offered you.  The trademark owner has a claim against the seller too, because he sold goods that violate the trademark owner's trademark rights.    But, if the trademark owner takes action it doesn't help you.   And for you to take action is likely not worth the expense.    The harsh reality that trademark counterfeiters often get away with it doesn't make becoming a counterfeiter a good business risk.

  police and judges will say "I have drug smuggling and "real" crimes to deal with where people actually get hurt."  That's not to say that one can't bring civil cases for trademark violations, one can, one just doesn't get a lot of sympathy from courts who think some businesses and fancy lawyers are wasting time that could be spent on "real" crimes.   

  indeed, it is a crime.  I can't speak from experience in Germany, but I can tell you in the U.S. that it is really hard to get law enforcement, or even a judge, interested in trademark counterfeiting or infringement no matter how blatant it is -- unless maybe pharmaceuticals are involved.  But, if you sell goods that you know are counterfeit then YOU are a counterfeiter.  Having bought them innocently from someone else doesn't absolve you, it just means you got burned. Sorry.   The party most likely to be interested, but also probably not likely to help you out financially, is the company that owns the subject trademark.  To find the German lawyer that handles that mark, try looking up the mark at the German trademark office, the DPMA.  Link to online search here:  https://register.dpma.de/DPMAregister/marke/einsteiger?lang=en