Nothing special about ProtonMail, except it seemed like an "easy choice" after reading the Surviving Surveillance Capitalism book a couple of years ago.
Everyone just needs to make their own decisions on privacy. I feel fairly comfortable with my practices. For me, it is the economic motivation of wanting to reduce the advantage companies I deal with have over me that convinced me to take extra precautions.
Ah got it. I support Protonmail because I believe in easy to use privacy tools for others like journalists, whistleblowers, and teachers. That's why I want Protonmail to be a leader in this space with clear marketing and communications.
Maybe for you that's clear. But I use Protonmail to advocate for journalists, whistleblowers, and teachers, many of which are not security experts and not familiar with the twisted language used by Protonmail's marketing team.
If their marketing team can't come up with something better, just take text from the privacy policy verbatim.
Agreed, that's why I've asked Protonmail to promote their Tor page. Before yesterday the only mention was in their footer under "Onion site" and in a single blog post from 2017. They need to do better at promoting and supporting users through Tor. Heck, add it to their transparency report "40% of users connected through Tor, our goal is 90%"
> We are on a thread talking about them removing claims on their marketing material... that's abundantly clear to you?
As a Protonmail customer, thanks for saying this. There seems to be this idea that a blog post Proton made in 2014 is being "up front" about their policies.
1. Their homepage stated ""By default, we do not keep any IP logs...". Due to complaints about this being a lie, they have today removed this statement
2. Their website also stated "No personal information required to create an account". However, for creating an account through Tor a phone number is required. This has been an issue for 4 years [1]
How could I expect Proton to disobey legal requests? That's crazy.
In Sweden you can get a prepaid phone number completely for free: Comviq literally gives away SIMs and to pre-pay you can still use cash. So from this point of view PM is not lying, not one bit.
Either you are confusing Switzerland and Sweden (which were two quite different countries last time I checked) or I'd be very much interested in data on why you see my words about Comviq giving away SIM cards as lie.
As you probably know, there are no roaming charges in EU, so if you have a swedish SIM card - you can use it (to receive SMS at least, sometimes answer calls) in any EU country. If you put some cash on it - you can even make calls. Still without providing a single bit of your PI (assuming you bought/stole a burner phone).
EDIT: clarification regarding SIM usage.
Isn't a phone number personal information as well? And what about countries where it is mandatory to register your SIM card? ProtonMail can't just reply to this part by saying "Just move to a different country bro". A phone number is personal information and should be treated as such.
A phone number is PI as long as it is tied to your ID. If you managed to get a SIM that is not in any way tied to your ID - then you are fine. This is assuming that nobody tracks your calls etc... but if you use Tor to register a PM account, then you probably know all the do's and dont's of both Tor and prepaid SIMs. As for the second part - yes and no. Yes, PM cannot answer suggesting to move. No, PM is not to blame for that. As it has been pointed out (in one of other threads about PM) this serves as a (not so high) hurdle for spammers, otherwise PMs free tier will turn into spam machine overnight. And paying customers still have to disclose their identity.
Also, if one values their privacy _that much_ then that person should be able to expend some effort to protect it, and not just make a couple of clicks on the webpage.
I support providers that believe this as well, and act in accordance.
Your model more treats privacy as something to be earned or attained through technical knowledge. No thanks. Journalists and whistleblowers need others looking out for them when no one else will.
If Protonmail doesn't solve this by the time my account is up for renewal, I will not be renewing.
