AN.ON, the German anonymiser service developed by the university of Dresden and the regional data protection authority of Schleswig Holstein, enabling its users to surf anonymously via a Java-webproxy has no more public funding this year. Although it will be possible for users to surf free via AN.ON, high performance services will be provided against cost.
During the last years the German service has struggled with some legal difficulties. In 2003, AN.ON project was forced by the Lower District Court in Frankfurt /Main to hand over the protocol data record showing the IP-address of visitors to specific websites, through a back door the developers were forced to create.
Within the new version, the payment will be made by common payment methods. The user's personal data, provided according to the payment method chosen, will be stored only when these data are necessary for the billing process and will be deleted afterwards.
The payment system will be finalised once it is publicly tested. The test is in progress and free of charge.
AN.ON - Payment Component Test
http://anon.inf.tu-dresden.de/PaymentTest_en.html
EDRI-gram no.17 : Police Raids German Anonymiser (10.10.2003)
http://archive.edri.org/cgi-bin/index?id=000100000109