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German Court: Google Must Stop Ignoring Customer E-mails

Posted by samzenpus on from the I-won't-be-ignored dept.

jfruh writes If you send an email to support-de@google.com, Google's German support address, you'll receive an automatic reply informing you that Google will not respond to or even read your message, due to the large number of emails received at that address. Now a German court has ruled (PDF) that this is an unacceptable response, based on a German law saying that companies must provide a means for customers to communicate with them. Update: 09/12 15:47 GMT by S : Updated to fix the links.

2 of 290 comments (clear)

  1. Re:define "customer" by GroeFaZ · · Score: 5, Insightful

    A customer is someone who receives a service from a company, even if the (monetary) price for that service is zero. Google and their users have agreed on certain terms which gives the customer some rights (using the services offered by Google), and Google some rights (collecting and using the customer's personal information for ads, etc.)

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    The grass is always greener on the other side of the light cone.
  2. Re:define "customer" by GroeFaZ · · Score: 5, Insightful

    That may be a rhetoric criticism to be leveled against Google, but the law has a different opinion. Google and their users have entered mutual contractual obligations. Whether or not those obligations directly involve money in any way does not matter.

    --
    The grass is always greener on the other side of the light cone.