European governments are preparing legislation to require companies to keep detailed data about people's Internet and phone use that goes beyond what the countries will be required to do under a European Union directive.

In Germany, a proposal from the Ministry of Justice would essentially prohibit using false information to create an e-mail account, making the standard Internet practice of creating accounts with pseudonyms illegal.

A draft law in the Netherlands would likewise go further than the European Union requires, in this case by requiring companies to save records of a caller's location during a cellphone conversation.

Even now, Internet service providers in Europe divulge customer information - which they keep on hand for about three months, for billing purposes - to police officials with valid orders, said Mr Peter Fleischer, the Paris-based European privacy counsel for Google. The data concerns how the communication was sent and by whom but not its content.

Under the proposals in Germany, consumers theoretically will not be able to create fictitious e-mail accounts. Nor can they use a made-up account for receiving commercial junk mail.

But law enforcement officials argued after the terrorist bombings in Spain and Britain that they needed better and longer data storage from companies.

European Union countries have until 2009 to put the Data Retention Directive into law, so the proposals seen now are early interpretations. But some people involved in the issue are concerned about a shift in policy in Europe. Under the proposals in Germany, consumers theoretically will not be able to create fictitious e-mail accounts. Nor can they use a made-up account for receiving commercial junk mail. While e-mail aliases would not be banned, they would have to be traceable to the actual account holder.

'This is an incredibly bad thing in terms of privacy, since people have grown up with the idea that you ought to be able to have an anonymous e-mail account,' Mr Fleischer said. 'Moreover, it's totally unenforceable and would never work.'

He said the law would have to require some kind of identity verification, 'like you may have to register for an e-mail address with your national ID card.'

Mr J?rg Hladjk, a privacy lawyer at Hunton & Williams, a Brussels law firm, said that might also mean that it could become illegal to pay cash for prepaid cellphone accounts.

Mr Fleischer said: 'It's ironic, because Germany is one of the countries in Europe where people talk the most about privacy. In terms of consciousness of privacy in general, I would put Germany at the extreme end.'

He said it was not clear that any European law would apply to e-mail providers based in the United States, like Google.Google requires only two pieces of information to open a Gmail account - a name and a password - and the company does not try to determine whether the name is authentic.

Under the proposals in Germany, consumers theoretically will not be able to create fictitious e-mail accounts. Nor can they use a made-up account for receiving commercial junk mail.