Google is threatening to close down their German gmail operations in opposition to a proposal in German law. The new Internet surveillance law would monitor any data on the Internet and save the information for six months.

Google currently offers anonymous email accounts and according to the German Privacy Representative, Peter Fleischer, the proposal to track and save the Internet activities of German citizens would be in direct violation of the company’s privacy policies. If the law goes in to effect, any Internet anonymizing tools would be made illegal.

Google’s anonymous email services allow users to remain untracked and spam free. The German legislation would defeat this purpose; hence, the threat from Google.