Google Apps Users Can Now Get End-to-End Email Encryption

Google Apps accounts can now get end-to-end encryption for messages.

Image: Mashable composite Google

By Christina Warren2014-05-15 11:51:04 UTC

Google on Thursday announced a new partnership that will bring full scale encryption to Google Apps.

Working with email data protection company Zix, Google has launched a new commercial product for Google Apps accounts dubbed Google Apps Message Encryption (GAME).

Although Google already supports secure, encrypted messages within its servers, email messages sent to other systems are not encrypted.

Organizations or users can use various workarounds to add PGP (public-key cryptography) to their messages, but those solutions are kludgy and not ideal for an organization with lots of users.

With GAME, Google and Zix are hoping to change that. GAME is available for $35 a year per user and allows Google Apps admins to configure encryption settings and routes from the Google Apps dashboard.

In a post-Snowden world, it's easy to think email encryption is primarily useful to keep prying eyes (such as the NSA) from intercepting messages. For regulated industries however, encrypted communications are an important part of doing business.

Many of Zix's customers are hospitals, banks and government organizations and its product for compliance with federal regulations such as HIPAA, Sarbanes-Oxley and PCI-DSSS.

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Google Apps Users Can Now Get End-to-End Email Encryption