Despite the stupid alliteration in the title, German Gmail users could face a real threat to their service. The threatened shutdown is In response to a new German law that will require email services to keep personally identifiable information for account holders.For all the information Google tracks about its users, the company doesn't require a home address, phone number, or anything else that can tie your email account to an individual person. Since Google makes its money off of advertising, anonymized and aggregated data is more useful.
The new law is framed as an anti-terrorism measure, but Google says it violates the company's privacy policy. What's funny is that Google's recently come under fire for holding too much private user data. Sometimes you just can't win.
