Google May Shut Germans Out Of GMail

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1. Gadgetize
   

   June 23rd, 2007 at 6:18 pm

   I hope they do shut it down, I don’t know why they’d want the liability or responsibility for storing all that personal information. And it’ll maybe point out the ridiculousness of the law a little.

2. 
   

   June 23rd, 2007 at 6:21 pm

   Germans have been doing this for a long time. gmx.de - one of the biggest email systems, not only forces users to enter a legit address, they make you prove it and will shut if off if you can’t.

   It probably has something to do with a) anally being able to track all citizens to keep “ordnung” and b) backwards paranoia “angst” about not letting too much secrecy go on in a misguided attempt at tranparency based on their (our) collective guilt of WWII. Don’t think I’m underestimating these as issues either.

3. Antje Wilsch
   

   June 23rd, 2007 at 6:22 pm

   not sure where my name went…

4. Zoli Erdos
   

   June 23rd, 2007 at 6:35 pm

   First Flickr censorship issues, now Gmail - next they pull Germany offline

5. The Southlander
   

   June 23rd, 2007 at 6:51 pm

   Google should be applauded for trying to maintain the privacy of its customers!

6. franky
   

   June 23rd, 2007 at 6:56 pm

   Another typical no knowledge TC entry: German laws require that every ISP, and webmaster, keeps 2 years long (at least) logs of IPs.

   I don’t think more needs to be said, flickr also knows the problem with German privacy laws. I love privacy, but also the protection German laws offers anyone in case of harassment and abuse should FINALLY be pointed out (yes, I’ve managed a Windows board in Germany, a little one nothing more than +5k uniques visitors daily, but large enough to be confronted with the daily dangers of trolling and much more).

   Sorry, Duncan, no matter how much I like you, your blogs and your track of record, but there still are many things you whether need to learn, whether need to investigate more.
   And if those local specifics aren’t known to you, please feel free to request. I’d help any fellow blogger any time. Especially bloggers I’ve learned much from.
   No personal assault in this comment, just some tips.

7. Oli
   

   June 23rd, 2007 at 7:10 pm

   Duncan just referred to an article in another blog which in turn refers to information from Heise.

8. Antje Wilsch
   

   June 23rd, 2007 at 7:12 pm

   @ franky, just because it’s a law doesn’t mean it’s logical, or right. One of my friends just had his gmx.de mail shut off b/c he was mailing everyone about germans perpetuating race wars. They would not reinstate it but eventually gave him a new mail because the old one was too inflammatory. That’s censorship, not maintaining privacy rights. Duncan is asking whether they’re saying that privacy is ok only if handled by the government? I don’t think so.

9. Alexander Klimetschek
   

   June 23rd, 2007 at 7:51 pm

   Germany’s laws regarding internet and web 2.0 are unfortunately not very well. One big issue that hits community-based web 2.0 sites is that the site owner is responsible for any comments made by anyone on his site. Think how this can threaten your web 2.0 business, you are a permanent target for dissuasions. There are many law firms that solely focus on such “Abmahnungen”. They have many possibilities: not having a correct imprint on your website and (since 2007) not providing a full-blown signature in all your business mails that states address, commercial register number and name of the CEO. The dissuasion is sent to anyone without such information saying that they would have an unfair advantage in competition… All this is just stupid.

10. Allen Stern
    

    June 23rd, 2007 at 8:03 pm

    FYI — I asked Till, a friend, German and Internet’r in Germany for some commentary… check out my post from this morning:
    http://www.centernetworks.com/.....in-germany

11. franky
    

    June 23rd, 2007 at 8:26 pm

    orry, but I really don’t understand why Germany’s laws, laws made to protect the user, should be blamed.

    Privacy?

    I agree, but privacy and protection aren’t always acompatible. Just try to remember that Germany is much evolved in matters of privacy than the US. Germany actually is one of the privacy example countries.
    Now that gets used againt them???

    WTF???

12. Drama 2.0
    

    June 23rd, 2007 at 8:52 pm

    So Google doesn’t want to comply with this German law but works with the Chinese government to censor search results? Without making any judgements on what’s right or wrong, I would say that Google’s sense of ethics seems to be variable. Apparently its actions are driven based upon on how important the market in question is. This is to be expected of corporations, however it is amusing with Google because it has always promoted itself as a “Do No Evil” company. My how quickly we forget.

13. Elwyn Jenkins
    

    June 23rd, 2007 at 9:10 pm

    Under those terms I am not sure I would want a gmail account that requires me to identify and prove my postal address. Gmail is good to have as an anonymous service. It is the underpinning of all good email communication online. If that law cam to Australia I would shut down my gmail account.

14. thaumata
    

    June 23rd, 2007 at 9:44 pm

    I’m actually curious to see how many germans have gone to their own government to protest this. I know the backlash on flickr lately was fairly widespread and I can’t imagine shutting off german gmail will get LESS attention, but what I didn’t see were many people doing the research to understand that this is mostly due to german laws and websites having a hard time complying.

    I mean, by solving this issue on a site by site basis, you’re treating a symptom, not a disease.

15. Antje Wilsch
    

    June 23rd, 2007 at 10:10 pm

    thaumata - Germans are basically compliant on things like this. [Unless you’re talking about Bavaria and it has to do w/ the catholic church.]

    Alexander - I didn’t know that. That sucks about content responsibility.

    Franky - frankly I disagree with you. I spend half my time in the US and half my time in Germany, and Germany can control a lot more b/c there are wayyyy fewer German speakers than English speakers, so German-only sites are for German speaking people, a much much smaller portion. I think Germans often go too far and sometimes ends up stifling innovation and annoying people.

    Drama - I’d rather go up against Germany than China. China’s army is much bigger haha, (& so is the population = potential revenue). Much as I love Germany they are on the decline along with the rest of Europe.

16. Bob Jones
    

    June 23rd, 2007 at 11:45 pm

    Fuhr Merkel is running the EU right now aswell, god help us.

17. Mark
    

    June 24th, 2007 at 12:54 am

    Hi i am German. I can’t realy believe Googles privacy concerns. I mean they are storing every single search and every email for lifetime. And i can’t see that this is necessary to provide us with better services.

    The German Government ist the other thing. They ordered the ISPs/Telephone Companies to store every connection data for at least 6 Month. They can access everyones emails. And the Police can use malware to check your PC (well thats stopped at the moment, they realised that they eventually have to change our “Constitution” first).

    Then there is a law that you have to authenticate users if you provide online porn or adult games, normally you go to one Postal Service (Post) and show your ID (Post ID). As a result Google even has to filter foreign adult sites, which are accessible without this authentications.

18. Bob Jones
    

    June 24th, 2007 at 1:07 am

    Can’t we kick Germany out of the EU for doing all that privacy-invasive crap?

19. neonemo
    

    June 24th, 2007 at 1:23 am

    What is going on right now in Germany got named with a nice term: STASI 2.0

    Stasi is the former Staats Sicherheit (State Security) of former East Germany.

    My opinion is that our Minister of interior - Wolfgang Schäuble - has a personal trauma from the past, when he was attacked by a man with a Smith & Wesson revolver and got shot 3 times. Ever since that time he is sitting in a wheelchair.

    Of course he wants to prevent things like this but don`t put a man with a trauma in that position!

20. We need more email SPAM!
    

    June 24th, 2007 at 1:25 am

    Why email SPAM is good?

    Privacy… Yahoo reads your business email without premission. They are sickest theives I ever known.

    I think Chinese Email lot better. Business patent protection, idea protection ,etc…

21. Mike
    

    June 24th, 2007 at 1:37 am

    What the hell is wrong with entering your full details . I have no problems with entering my address as long as I know it wont be sold, passed on to any third party companies or used in anyway within contacting me first.

    If somebody really wanted to find something about you no matter what ( bank account details , address , medical records etc ) you can with databases like experian and NHSNet.

22. Steffen
    

    June 24th, 2007 at 1:51 am

    Regardless of the questionable character of this law - I fully support it and other anti-terror measures, I find it funny that especially Google is concerned about the users privacy.

    Goodbye Google. Somebody will fill the void.

23. torgeir
    

    June 24th, 2007 at 2:57 am

    Does anyone know if this is an exclusive to Germany law, if it’s the German implementation of EUs Dataretention directive?

24. रवि
    

    June 24th, 2007 at 3:02 am

    सरकारें हर जगह एक सी होती हैं… चाहे भारत की हो या जर्मनी की! और क़ानून बनाने वाले नेता भी - चाहे वे बुश हों या मुश!

25. Dominik Hahn
    

    June 24th, 2007 at 3:53 am

    A verifiable address for each user should come in handy for Google’s plan to collect all information in the world.

    What is announced and what is done is another pair of shoes but I am also excited about the future.
    Some German users already posted how ridiculous the current system is and I am curious what happens next.

    I also got a cease-and-desist warning sometime ago and I’m afraid that it all gets worse.

26. Bob Jones
    

    June 24th, 2007 at 4:08 am

    How does this help track terrorists at all anyway?

    1. We had terrorists before e-mail! We caught them then, we can catch them now.
    2. How many terrorists are dumb enough to chat in unencrypted e-mail on a Google account? Especially when Google combs through the e-mails for advertising purposes?

    Germany is clearly undemocratic but with the state of the EU in general - its not suprising they are paving the way in terms of this constitution crap, I somehow doubt freedom of speech was included by Fuhr Merkel.

27. tech povera
    

    June 24th, 2007 at 4:15 am

    One more day with sad news about Europe. No wonder why we keep getting our asses kicked all the time.

28. alex
    

    June 24th, 2007 at 4:36 am

    > bob jones (all your contributions)

    - Germany is clearly undemocratic??
    - Fuhr Merkl
    - Can’t we kick Germany out of the eu?

    I am not sure what your agenda is but it is clearly off topic.

29. Bob Jones
    

    June 24th, 2007 at 4:47 am

    No it isn’t … democracy doens’t mean tracking communication, forming massive databases of names and communication.

    Lets say Fuhr Merkel, clearly an extreme dictator, gets her way and this happens. Well lets also say a German citizen writes an e-mail saying Furh Merkel is a dictator, well now the German government has the e-mail and the author … hmm, I wonder how long until he ends up in Jail?

    –

    My agenda is a freer internet and freer world, this woman serves only to make more power for herself.

    I don’t care much what happens in Germany but thanks to the EU this mad woman can get this done here in the UK - and worse, instead of all my e-mails going to my government, they will go to Brussels - where they can track dissidents and throw them in Jail.

30. alex
    

    June 24th, 2007 at 5:05 am

    I give in - you persuaded me

31. Allen Stern
    

    June 24th, 2007 at 5:56 am

    Hey just imagine - google gets all of our snail mail addys (i bet they have them already) and then links them up with the good-for-nothing live map views.

32. franky
    

    June 24th, 2007 at 6:33 am

    Antje, I really don’t agree with the online privacy laws in Germany. Believe me, I don’t. They really are evil.

    But this post required more knowledge IMNSHO.

    Mark (#16), unless laws have changed since I left Germany 2 years ago, as webmaster you have to keep your server logs 2 years long (at least be prepared to hand them to court in the case of a subpoena, there are several precedents already of this).

33. Sven
    

    June 24th, 2007 at 7:00 am

    Our (German) government is know for showing complete lack of knowledge when it comes to Internet laws. If Google would shut down that service for Germany, then go to Google.com instead of Google.de and get your Email account there. Same with sex sites: German law requires proof of legal age (18) before entering such sites.

    Ever been to Italy? They will not allow you to surf in Internet Cafés unless you give them your passport/ID for their records! Thanks to Berlusconi - I think he wanted to make sure that there are no illegal actions in his country other than the ones HE does…

34. Aydin Mirzaee
    

    June 24th, 2007 at 8:30 am

    We all know that Google has been criticized for its privacy policies in the past… I hope this is not a ploy on their behalf to try and say to the world “we do respect privacy.” I’m sure that if the German Gov’t continued to insist and German Users still wanted gmail anyway that Google would stick around… Google may push back a little, but in the meanwhile, it will also make sure that users around the world know that they are trying defend themselves against the German gov’t…

    Is this a marketing ploy? I don’t think it was intended as one… but, if the opportunity is there, why not?

35. Marshall
    

    June 24th, 2007 at 8:46 am

    @Bobjones

    After your first posting here, I knew you are a Brit. Your postings indicate that you are one of those 95% of Brits, who never learned German and only see Germans on vacation (in Spain) or on the soccer pitch.

    Irony on

    It’s 2007 and it’s not the “Huns” fault, that you guys cannot win the soccer worldcup, have crooked teeth and cannot cook

    Irony off

36. Bob Jones
    

    June 24th, 2007 at 9:26 am

    Well Britain is the freer than Germany, Italy and other nations in Old Europe, what do I care?
    I care simply because thanks to the EU, these whackjobs have influence over me - they can push laws onto me, and I get a little testy when dictators try that.

    To clarify in Britain I don’t need to hand over my identity to use the internet - ah, freedom.

    As for learning German, if I was going to learn another language it most certainly would not be that, it would be Mandarin - China matters, Germany doesn’t.

37. Sebbi
    

    June 24th, 2007 at 10:32 am

    @Bob Jones:

    Britain is the freer than Germany

    No sir, Britain is definetly worst in “Old Europe”. I just read that there are tv-channels broadcasting live from surveillance cameras. How free is that?

    As for your fear of laws being pushed onto you … your country is one of the big old ones in Europe and has great influence over what becomes EU law. You are equally “pushing laws” onto other people … the majority likes the way it works and we look forward to greater unity in Europe, because that is the only possible way that can save us (U.S. included) from chinese domination at the middle of the century.

    At least in one point you are right … learning Mandarin might prove more useful than learning German lucky you that you live in a English speaking country and have to learn one language less than the rest of us

38. Alex Yakima
    

    June 24th, 2007 at 10:34 am

    Not very good idea to “stop” the Web. We’re breathing it now. And asphyxia isn’t quite good.

39. Germanist
    

    June 24th, 2007 at 12:41 pm

    Oh, it is not a really important thing. We are going to have Orwell in some years, but it does not matter. It is all against terrorism…

40. Marshall
    

    June 24th, 2007 at 12:42 pm

    Bob Jones:
    ——————————————————————–
    To clarify in Britain I don’t need to hand over my identity to use the internet
    ———————————————————————-
    No Bob, you don’t have to handover you identity, because your ISP sells your clickstream for you to Hitwise/Comscore …for about $10/month!
    (Old) Europe’s privacy laws are way more strict than the UK’s old school laws.

    Darn…do I hate people,who are ignorant and have no clou of what they are talking about.

41. Lars Fischer
    

    June 24th, 2007 at 12:48 pm

    If Google shuts down my Gmail account, I’ll stop using all Google products immediately.

42. Arik
    

    June 24th, 2007 at 1:57 pm

    Over 2000 innocent civilians were slaughtered by the chinese government in 1989 simply for wanting their country to be more democratic.
    Ever since, the Chinese government has done a lot to erase that chapter from history, as well as other civil rights related events.
    Today, china still heavily censors the internet. Almost a quarter of the people in our world are deprived of their history, deprived of free knowledge about the world they live in, deprived of the means to persue democracy and to better their society, all with the help of Google: an active partner in one of the greatest censorship projects humanity has ever known.
    It is thanks to google, among others, that china is able to execute 10,000 (!) of it’s own citizens every year, without anyone revolting- because nobody knows.
    Doublecheck me on this. Don’t take my word for it. read the full Human Rights Watch report at: http://www.hrw.org/reports/2006/china0806/ .
    What I am trying to say is that Google is hardly an authority on freedom of any kind. What they say is irrelevant.

    As for the german laws, well, history teaches us that such vast knowledge bases of personal information are eventually abused. Always.

    Keep the internet private. It’s a cause worth fighting for. But be prepared- the greatest threat on free, private internet is not the German Government. It’s Google, Yahoo and Microsoft. Few years from now, these companies will know more about more people than any other government in history.

43. Nemrut
    

    June 24th, 2007 at 3:50 pm

    Privacy concerns…what does that say for sites like Xing, MySpace, Linkedin, Facebook, et al..

44. Sven
    

    June 24th, 2007 at 5:12 pm

    @BobJones

    > As for learning German, if I was going to learn another language

    You’re not.

45. TechThatOut
    

    June 24th, 2007 at 5:19 pm

    It’s their own fault, no Googles problem

46. Thomas
    

    June 24th, 2007 at 6:22 pm

    Hands down, google is not that sweet tech company in the valley! regardless of the law of the country, it’s an issue between 2 companies and not 2 countries. google could have settled that but they were arrogant. they have been arrogant many times in their acquisitions, their attitude, their product offering, orkut, myspace deal, skype deal,…

    being pro google, the way Duncan is going about, is fading and possibly damaging techcrunch’s impartiality to the content.

47. Call Me X
    

    June 24th, 2007 at 7:15 pm

    I have a unique perspective in that I am half German and half my family resides in Germany whilst, I myself am British born (father born in Germany, mother English)

    The EU has brought some very good laws to the table, especailly for workers in the UK (min. wage)

    The 1998 privacy was also of benfit and preventing abuse of personal data and how its used (all out the window though with the new ID cards).

    Interesting, this German law would appear to contradict that very law of privacy.

    Even more interesting is the UK gov’t plans for ID cards built into the Passport service, which will hold far more detailed and invasive data, then the German Gov’t are requesting. Also, the UK Gov plans to share this data. Totally contradicts EU privacy laws and not just with the police, also banks and who knows what else?!

    The UK has the most CCTV of any country. Everything we do is recorded, from the day we are born to the day we day, the only change is technology.

    Personally I think every Country censors/big brother’s with one hand and screams privacy rights with the other. Its just a differen’t method for each country.

    Its all part of the New World Order.

48. Sayton
    

    June 25th, 2007 at 12:46 am

    @Mike - What if your government is evil? What if you can’t protect your data from an evil, powerful government guy who’s after your ass for personal reasons? Here’s where privacy comes in.

49. Thomas Kuhn
    

    June 25th, 2007 at 1:55 am

    Hi folks,

    being the original author of the story mentioned I’m glad to follow the discussion here. One little correction anyway.

    The original story was not published at heise.de. It originates from the German business weekly “WirtschaftsWoche”.

    If anyone wants to read it (in German), you will find it here: http://www.wiwo.de/pswiwo/fn/w.....index.html

    Best

    Thomas

50. Bob Jones
    

    June 25th, 2007 at 2:00 am

    Sebbi, there are cameras and its a problem here, ofcourse, but I don’t use cameras for free speech and while you’ll never hear anybody admit it, these cameras are mostly privately owned - if a company wants to put a camera on its property, what right do I have to complain?

    I don’t know what TV station you mean.

    —
    ”
    No Bob, you don’t have to handover you identity, because your ISP sells your clickstream for you to Hitwise/Comscore …for about $10/month!”
    I don’t know if that is true but if it is, I’d rather Hitwise, or Google or Microsoft have my personal details than the government … what a private company does with details I choose to give them isn’t a freedom problem, its a common sense problem.

    There is a difference between Eric Schmidt knowing I dislike Tony Blair, from my e-mails or searches. and Tony Blair knowing it …

51. Alfonso
    

    June 25th, 2007 at 2:55 am

    While I am confident that this law will not be enforced the point you make Michael about the EU and privacy is not that clear:
    Does Free Speach mean Anonymity?
    Does Privacy mean you need anonymity?
    In a country like Germany where there is neither a pressure on any minority opinion (except Neo-Nazi in fact) nor a all too strong risk of “big Brother” by any secret service, having at least your email standing up for who you are wouldn’t bee that bad, would it?
    Remeber that the rising star right now, facebbook, was all about enforcing you to use a realname adress (the college one) and now still requires it if you want to join any professional network…

52. Sid
    

    June 25th, 2007 at 3:07 am

    Just providing a translation here
    @ रवि (Ravi)

    सरकारें हर जगह एक सी होती हैं…
    Governments are the same in all places.

    चाहे भारत की हो या जर्मनी की!
    Whether it is the Indian [government] of the german [government].

    और क़ानून बनाने वाले नेता भी
    And the people who make the laws.

    चाहे वे बुश हों या मुश!
    Whether it is bush or Mush [The pakistani dude]

53. Bob Jones
    

    June 25th, 2007 at 4:44 am

    Alfonso, everything Government does is bad, the issue is how much we can limit it … this crosses a line.

    No other method of communication is tracked like this, Mail is totally anonymous and Telephones can only be tracked to phone lines and not people, not to mention public phones … but the government wants to reign in net freedom.

54. Marshall
    

    June 25th, 2007 at 6:43 am

    ——————————————————————-
    I don’t know if that is true but if it is, I’d rather Hitwise, or Google or Microsoft have my personal details than the government …
    —————————————————————-

    It is true and you seriously want to tell us that you prefer your personal data in the hands of private companies than in the hands of the government?
    If yes..I don’t really know what you guys are doing over there in the UK.

55. geg
    

    June 25th, 2007 at 7:12 am

    What the F is wrong with you people??? you’re having a dick-waving contest over whose privacy laws are worse, or whether google’s done worse in the past.

    why not discuss whether it’s a good idea for germany to collect this data and whether it’s a good thing for google to protest it?

    Jesus, this could be a post about how every german citizen is going to be shot in the foot, and some idiot here would post about how at least he’s not in britain where he would get shot in the leg!!

56. Dave
    

    June 25th, 2007 at 7:23 am

    What starts in Germany will eventually be brought to the EU. What is brought up at the EU will eventually make it to the NAU/SPP. Are you all awake yet?

57. Concrete Stain
    

    June 25th, 2007 at 12:52 pm

    If google bent over for China; Y not Germany?

58. marvin
    

    June 28th, 2007 at 7:29 am

    he you guys i know
    the german laws suck but
    1 of all if you throw germany out
    of the eu it will break down
    since germ. pays the most money
    of all eu states

    the have been many mail prov.
    that requ. post mail ads.
    but as you know who is that stupid
    to use a mail ac. where they know
    your ad.
    google alr. knows where you are from
    they know you ad./ip so they should calm down

    on the other hand
    they could still use it with a foreign
    proxy server.
    you could post some
    -> to help those guys from germany
    who read the story!!

59. r
    

    July 3rd, 2007 at 11:15 am

    all this bickering and complaining coming from a country where identity theft and spam is on the daily check list of things-to-do……
    USA … who are you to throw the stone when you are sitting in the glass house?????