What's the difference between GoogleApps Message Encryption (GAME) and ZixGateway?

Difference between GAME and ZIxGateway explained

Google Apps Message Encryption

Google Apps Message Encryption (GAME) was designed specifically for Google Apps by Zix Corp, which for over a decade has enabled subscribers to send encrypted e-mail to recipients, who in turn must enroll to be notified of and access such messages.

Google already has a method for encryption of e-mail if both the sender and the recipient are both Google Apps customers.

Paid Google Apps accounts do not come with any kind of email encryption.  Google supports forced TLS outbound to email providers that support encryption and Google allows opportunistic TLS inbound and outbound, but this does not ensure that your communications are secured in general or that your email messages are HIPAA compliant.  What you need is a mechanism that will:

  1. Ensure that messages you send to anyone are encrypted during transport (at a minimum)
  2. Allow correspondents at non-compliant hosts to send secure messages to you

There is no such mechanism with a paid Google Apps account. If you sign up for Google Apps, request and sign their BAA, then start sending emails out, you could very quickly be in violation of HIPAA and in breach.

In the event, the recipient is outside of Google’s email system, senders can subscribe to GAME for encryption transparency. The existing Google Message Encryption costs about $35 per user per year, and GAME is expected to be the same.

How is GAME different than ZixGateway?

The two products are very similar but there are some distinct difference you should be aware of:

1. In GAME, you have to purchase a minimum of 100 licenses and then pay for each additional user over 100. In a dedicated ZixGateway instance, you can get a license for as few as 49 users. Ask us for a quote. You could also use a Zix MSP hosting partner and purchase a minimum of 5 licenses.  ZixEmailSecurity.com  can provide this service.

2. Google has very limited support for Google Apps Message Encryption, you must contact ZixCorp for support of GAME.

3. In GAME, you must order offline and do most of the setup yourself. If you purchase a private ZixGateway, a ZixCorp deployment coordinator will help you with the configurations.

4. GAME does not come with a custom branded ZixPort while ZixGateway hosted includes one with the service. This is a huge advantage of buying ZixGateway direct.

5. With GAME you do not get any custom policy filtering or lexicons. Also, Google support is limited to configuration settings but cannot support issues with Zix filtering.