Please, El Reg, check your facts before jumping on a Google bandwagon. The blame may lie closer to Home.

The draft German law discussed here does not explicitly 'ban' anything, although it does require ISPs to maintain records of the name and address of their customers, which, it is true, makes anonymous e-mail accounts impossible. However, in making this provision, the German law merely implements the provisions of the European 'Data retention' Directive 2006/24/EC (see http://eur-lex.europa.eu/LexUriServ/LexUriServ.do?uri=CELEX:32006L0024:EN:HTML ), Article 4 (2) of which provides that the personal data to be retained includes

"(2) concerning Internet access, Internet e-mail and Internet telephony: [...]

(iii) the name and address of the subscriber or registered user to whom an Internet Protocol (IP) address, user ID or telephone number was allocated at the time of the communication;"

This applies to all 27 EU member states, not just Germany, so it is a little surprising that we haven't heard from Google about its shutting down Gmail to users in Latvia or Malta, or for that matter the UK (whose successive Home Secretaries, as I recall, were at the forefront of those who pressed for the 'Data retention' Directive in the first place).