Deutsche Telekom

This is a BigBrotherAward in the “Preventive” category.

With these awards we don’t want to wait until the catastrophe or the injustice has already happened. We would prefer to change things beforehand, to prevent them from happening!

In a nutshell, we would be perfectly happy if the reason for this BigBrotherAward never materialised. And we will gladly contribute to this being the case. :-)

This preventive BBA goes to

Deutsche Telekom, AG

– for its plan to merge with T‑Mobile US. In other words, the merger of Deutsche Telekom with its own subsidiary in the USA.

What would this merger mean? Most of us would probably ask this with respect to NASDAQ and DAX, and wonder how the share prices of Telekom and T‑Mobile might respond.

But my first thought was: The FISA Act¹! And whatever else might be looming, such as the CLOUD ACT and Executive Order 12333 (“one-two-triple-three”) – these US laws and orders allow their intelligence agencies to monitor the communications of non-US citizens. Like us, for example. Especially if we use services provided by US companies. For T‑Mobile US, there has been an agreement with the FBI since 2001. With the planned merger of Deutsche Telekom and T‑Mobile US, it looks like the US agencies will also be handed our ‘domestic’ German communications on a silver platter.

The exact details of the merger will matter a lot, namely,who will ‘swallow’ whom. If the company that stores the data is going to be subject to US law, US intelligence agencies will be able to access data from all Deutsche Telekom’s German customers. Where the data is actually stored will be immaterial. What matters is “possession, custody, control” – the question whether a US unit of the company will legally or technically be able to access German data. If there are going to be joined up IT systems, central administrative permissions, company-wide customer or billing platforms, then these data are “in control” and subject to disclosure obligations.

Here are some more details on these acronyms that are so loaded with consequences:

FISA (Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act) Section 702 (“Seven-O-Two”) is a US federal law that obliges US companies to cooperate with US intelligence agencies to facilitate mass surveillance. The agencies will ask US companies like Google, Microsoft or Apple for direct access. This affects all non-US citizens who use services or software from US providers.²

The CLOUD Act (Clarifying Lawful Overseas Use of Data Act) is about criminal prosecution. Subject to a judge permit, the FBI, for example, can issue targeted requests for data on individuals that is stored on US companies’ servers – no matter where these servers are located. So this would even be the case if these servers are in Europe.

Executive Order 12333 was issued in 1981. A legal assessment by the University of Cologne, Germany, concluded that it enabled US security agencies, largely without judicial review, to demand access to cloud data and also to data stored outside the US without the providers’ cooperation.

Coincidentally, this legal assessment was commissioned by the German Interior Ministry and remained unpublished. It only became public knowledge thanks to the platform fragdenstaat.de (“ask the state”) and the Freedom of Information law – a law which the conservative Union parties would love to virtually abolish.

Is anyone at Deutsche Telekom even considering these implications of their merger plans on German customers? Does the management just not care? Do they regard data protection as a mere nuisance?

And what about the German government? Has it passed out? Or does it simply not care about US surveillance? This would be irresponsible on several levels. Because what we are dealing with is German critical infrastructure. Access by US agencies would not only impact all citizens, but also government agencies as well as the commercial secrets of German companies.

The German state is, after all, Deutsche Telekom’s largest share-holder – together with the state-owned investment and development bank, KfW, it holds just under 28.6%, giving them a blocking minority. In the planned new holding, the German state’s share would shrink to about 18%.

“All this is just speculation”, is what Telekom has said publicly about its merger plans. T‑Mobile US won’t comment. The German Digital Ministry points toward the Finance Ministry. They, in turn, announce that this is “speculation” on which “as a rule, [they] can not comment”.³

So we can only rely on the existing evidence for this BigBrotherAward.

• According to business magazine Handelsblatt, insiders have let slip that on the orders of Telekom CEO Timotheus Höttges, a small team of experts is already working on the deal. The objective: to merge the two companies under a joint holding.
• Another piece of evidence: CEO Höttges’ personality, namely his enthusiasm for the USA and its commercial environment : less rules, more capital, and if you just go ahead and act you will ultimately win. There are numerous sources for this.
• In his keynote to the 2025 Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, he complains in no uncertain terms how Deutsche Telekom had to deal with 270 different government agencies. To him just one agency that issues all the required permits would be enough – just like the US Federal Communications Commission (FCC). (I will come back to them later.)

Would you like an example of the way Höttges thinks?

• “Europe needs a DOGE”⁴, he told the 2025 Mobile World Congress in Barcelona. This of course is a reference to Elon Musk’s “Department of Government Efficiency”. Really, Mr Höttges? So you are advocating an obliteration of state services, a tear-down of regulations that protect people from arbitrary action, the sacking of thousands of competent government employees, and the surprise theft of all citizens’ data from government departments?

In 2025 we presented a BigBrotherAward to the misleading term “cutting bureaucracy”⁵ when deregulation is the real goal. I recommend reading the award speech.

Mr Höttges believes that having fewer competitors in the market will ultimately benefit consumers, too. According to him, size is all that matters these days and sadly this paradigm in the platform economy has not filtered through to politicians yet.⁶

Yes, exactly – size. If Deutsche Telekom and T‑Mobile were to merge, the result would be the largest telecommunications company worldwide.

So much for the evidence on Höttges’ motives.

Meanwhile we also have evidence on where the new telecoms holding would be situated. Two tax havens are in the running: Switzerland, or – Ireland! Ireland, of all countries …

Ireland is where a whole range of US Big Tech companies have settled over several years: For example, Google, Meta, Microsoft, Apple, Amazon, Twitter / X. None of these really enjoy paying taxes. And the data protection authority in Ireland is doing their very best to sabotage every single data protection query from anywhere in Europe by refusing to work on it. For this unparalleled commitment we gave the Irish Data Protection Commission their own BigBrotherAward in 2022.⁷

Oh, I’m just hearing that we’re going to have a short commercial break … Back in a second.
[Ireland ad video]⁸

And then, Elon Musk himself suddenly appears around the corner with SpaceX . He wants to enter the US mobile market with his own Starlink satellite network. He is probably not in the mood for doing all the groundwork of building phone masts, radio masts, cable networks and so on. He would probably prefer going on a shopping trip to buy up the competition, meaning, one of the three large US mobile phone providers: AT&T, Verizon, or – T‑Mobile US. Conveniently he has a cooperation with the latter already, which the other two categorically refused. But, presumably, even the existing cooperation would hardly prevent Musk from attempting a take-over.⁹

Of course, there is a chance that the whole new holding would be very palatable for Elon Musk, too, which would put not just the US market, but Europe’s in his pocket too. He has the money for it.

Telecommunication is a highly regulated market, in theory. But Elon Musk would probably be able to secure a permit for anything he wants. Because the head of the US regulatory authority FCC¹⁰, Brendan Carr, was installed as the head of this department after a recommendation from Musk¹¹. Since then, the FCC has stopped being an independent agency.¹² Rarely has corruption and the seeking of personal gain been pursued as openly as under the Trump administration. Oh, and of course: the FCC – this is the one government agency that according to Höttges would wholly suffice …

It is time for the German government to act. It must take digital sovereignty and data protection for its citizens seriously. It must not allow German critical infrastructure to come under de-facto control of a foreign power. It must prevent the new Telekom holding from being situated in a tax haven. It must make use of its capacity to block this!

“Connecting your world”, says a Telekom advertising slogan. After the merger, that would mean: connected with Washington, with the FCC, and with US intelligence .

For now, the German government has the power to stop this.

Warm congratulations on your BigBrotherAward, dear Deutsche Telekom.