they scrubed there no ip logs policy years ago
What are they supposed to do as an internationally known and used company? Reject legal proceedings and ignore official national laws?
I mean, the answer to that is clearly they should structure their service to store the absolute least possible personal information needed to allow the service to function so that when a legitimate law enforcement agency comes knocking they can honestly say they don’t have much.
Which… appears to be pretty much what they do.
I agree with you. Losing the protection of a right – even one as fundamental as privacy – is by definition not a violation so long as that happens through due process. Now we can certainly talk a lot about what level of process is due, and I’m sure it will be basically unanimous that current standards around the world are FAR too accommodating to law enforcement, but at least in principle a warrant justifies the invasion of privacy. That’s what the warrant is for.
This story kind of makes me want to switch all my stuff to ProtonMail.
Yeah I would agree with you that given the service they provide (email is brutal), they couldn’t really collect any less info or improve security/privacy much more.
And what advertising is that precisely? No data ( emails, passwords, drive files ) were shared with the authorities. So the data is still secure and private.
As far as I can tell they haven’t falsely advertised.
I’d give them bonus points for transparency ( publishing how many court ordered subpoenas they receive on a yearly basis ) compared to other companies that don’t.
Other companies which are prominent in the privacy/secure email scene face similar issues.
I think you’re mixing up anonymity with privacy. It can definitely be more anonymous, but you would need to take steps for that yourself ( Tor, VPN, … ).
Tldr: Yes, still secure and private.
Well I’m a customer and I think it’s fine if the requests are legitimate. The question then of course is what is legitimate.
Idk for most people, but the reason I use proton mail is to avoid google parsing everything I receive to send me ads. I “have nothing to hide” on a legal pov, I’m not a criminal, the worst offence I do is like Jay walking or crossing at a red light on foot when there is no one at midnight. I don’t use proton services to protect myself from the law (or in other words to avoid the consequences of my acts), I just want to be a customer instead of a product.
YOU JAY WALK!?
You are a disgrace!!! How do you sleep with yourself?
DISGUSTING!
/s
But that’s a really great point. It’s easy to thinking of your threat model as all or nothing. And you are right. I’m not hiding from the law. I’m hiding from advertisers. If the government acquires my information then it was a mistake on their part as there is nothing there to find other than emails from my bank.
The article is actually pretty balanced. Yes Proton is secure and private, but if you’re hiding from law enforcement, don’t expect a third party to take the fall for you.
If you’re hiding from the LEOs in any real way you sure as fuck aren’t using email.
