German companies to automatically encrypt customers' emails
Found on DW on Monday, 12 August 2013
Deutsche Telekom AG and United Internet AG announced on Friday that they were joining forces in a project dubbed “E-Mail Made in Germany,” which would see all emails sent from the T-Online, GMX or Web.de services automatically encrypted.
Under the new system, the contents, attachments and metadata of the emails are to be encrypted while in transit between the sender and receiver. The data is to be available in an unencrypted state on the companies' servers but any access to third parties, such as prosecutors, is to be granted only in compliance with German law.
Not a wrong decision, but mostly a PR stunt. There is no end-to-end encryption, so if you really want to protect the content of your emails you still need to do so yourself.