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Telekom boss Timotheus Höttges declares De

2021-02-26T14:58:35.721Z


Ten years ago, the federal government started De-Mail for secure communication with authorities. The Telekom boss now publicly charged the service sharply - to the irritation of the other project partners


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Telekom boss and De-Mail critic Timotheus Höttges

Photo: Oliver Berg / dpa

Actually, there would be a big anniversary soon: In April 2011 the federal government introduced the “De-Mail” law, a new, legally secure way of establishing contact with authorities and companies.

In the last few years, not much has been heard of this offer, until now.

In a detailed almost two-hour interview with YouTuber Tilo Jung ("Jung & Naiv"), Telekom boss Timotheus Höttges left the project pushed by the Federal Ministry of the Interior bad.

De-Mail was "overly complicated" and a "dead horse," said Höttges.

Despite investments in the three-digit million range, "there has never been anyone who has used this product," which is why the service was "discontinued".

The fundamental criticism comes as a surprise, because Telekom continues to advertise the service online: "Communicate easily and legally with companies and authorities," it says.

And: »Become a De-Mailer now«.

When asked, the company explains that De-Mail will "no longer be actively marketed", but that existing customers will continue to be supplied.

However, the offer “did not develop at the hoped-for speed” from the start and “has not yet achieved any economic result”.

The company did not answer the question about the current number of customers.

No information on the total costs

The Federal Ministry of the Interior also did not provide any current user numbers and referred to the project partners, which in addition to Telekom also include United Internet AG (including Gmx, Web.de) and Mentana Claimsoft GmbH.

According to their information, there were more than a million private customers in 2015, tens of thousands of medium-sized customers and around 1,000 major customers from business and administration.

Regarding Höttge's fundamental criticism, the ministry said that it had been noticed for around two years that Telekom was withdrawing from De-Mail, which is why the authorities turned to other providers.

In fact, the federal institutions also took a lot of time to set up De-Mail access.

Some apparently still do not have this, although the De-Mail Act required them to do so until 2016.

As of June 2019, 85 of 92 federal authorities could be reached by De-Mail, according to the Interior Ministry.

With reference to the lack of time, the Ministry of the Interior could not or did not want to provide more precise information on the total costs incurred so far for the taxpayer.

The running costs are "around 9320 euros (net)" per month for a central gateway.

Gmx and Web.de contradict Telekom

Like many other federal digital projects, De-Mail was controversial from the start.

On a central information portal for the offer, the project partners try to refute six alleged "myths" with arguments.

The project partner United Internet AG contradicts the assessment of the Telekom boss.

When asked whether one evaluates the offer as critically as Telekom, Gmx and Web.de managing director Jan Oetjen says: "On the contrary, we continue to see great potential."

They have been operating the platform "cost-covering for years" and see "a growth in registrations especially since the beginning of the pandemic".

There are currently 750,000 active De-Mail customers.

Among other things, they used the service to view their data at Deutsche Rentenversicherung by De-Mail or to send their legally binding documents to banks and insurers.

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Source: spiegel

All tech articles on 2021-02-26

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