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German Court: Google Must Stop Ignoring Customer E-mails
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.
...based on a German law saying that companies must provide a means for customers to communicate with them.
Google can argue that they've met the requirements of the law by providing a means for customers to communicate. No where in the law does it require Google to respond.
Since Germany is a democracy, they should change the law to achieve what the state really wants from entities like Google.
Is a web site visitor a customer? Or does some form of payment for services need to be made? What about android users, does having an android device make someone a customer or would google need to sell the OS for that to count?
It sounds like the Judge ruled that any person who uses a google service is a customer even if that service is free. It seems like that is a win for the consumer, but I have to wonder if that was the correct decision in this case. It doesn't seem unreasonable to me to need to be a paying customer for a company to expend resources to adequately respond to your communications. Some questions can cause hours of follow up work to send a reply.
If Google decides to discontinue all Google services in Germany as a result, would that really be a "win" for the German consumer?
The only difference between Google and most customer service today is that at least Google are honest about it and tell you that you will be ignored. Most other companies will just ignore your email and not tell you or leave you in a call queue for so long that you end up having to hang up and go do something else.
Good luck trying to contact them as an advertiser too.
On the surface this sounds like a great decision for the google users in Germany. But do you really think Google is going to change their ways? Or spend one dime to appeal this ruling? Nope! They'll just change their automated reply to "Thank you for your issue/concern. We'll look into it and get back to you if necessary."
If they don't act, they will be fined. However, in Germany being fined doesn't mean you paid for what you are doing wrong, it means the court did something to get your attention. So if after being fined they don't act, the fine will be increased until they act. There isn't really a limit, because not changing their ways tells the court "this fine was so small that we can afford to ignore it, fine us more!".
In the US, if you receive something of monetary value in exchange for a service, you have received income, and that income is taxed. If Google is not being taxed on the data it receives for its free services, then the government itself is saying there is no monetary value on that data. No value means no sale, and thus no customer. Just because you have a contract does not require that one party be a customer.