Google May Close German GMail Service Due to Privacy Concerns

Press Release - June 26, 2007

Search giant, Google Inc., is threatening to pull its free web-based email service from the German market if that country’s government passes a controversial law banning the use of anonymous email accounts.

GMail, which is formally known as Google Mail in Germany due to trademark conflicts, allows users to set up anonymous email accounts, and defends this policy as a reasonable protection of customer privacy. The company says that the right to anonymity is essential to spam protection, as well as freedom of speech in the face of increased government restrictions.

The proposed law, which could take effect as early as next year, would force internet and email providers to save users’ personal details for a minimum of six months, and would ban the use of anonymous proxy servers in Germany.

“If need be we will simply switch off Google Mail in Germany,” commented Google’s global privacy counsel, Peter Fleischer, in an interview with the German economics magazine, Wirtschaftswoche. “If the web community can no longer trust us to handle their data with care, we will fairly quickly cease to be a going concern.”

Google has received bad press in recent weeks for its own policies of retaining user data, but is now attempting to redeem itself by demonstrating a firm commitment to the right to internet anonymity and confidentiality.