Proton has stopped using their Mastodon account
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I don’t use email for any meaningful communication where I expect privacy. It is essentially the way for companies and a few other organizations to send me low priority information and/or confirm my identity to reset a password or whatever.
As a privacy enthusiast (expert seems too much), this immediately stood out. Privacy is the context of emails means that all my data which includes the content of the messages but also the metadata (who I talk to, which services I use - like in your example -, when I communicate, how often, etc.) is kept private, meaning not used for anything else than providing me the service (i.e., let me send and receive emails).
From this point of view, even if you consider the content of your emails not sensitive, already the fact that you do use company X (because they sent you a password reset email) is data about you, and as such can and will be mined by Google to profile you or to sell it.Am I risking too much if I use it as the corporate contact point that it is? Am I just letting my white/straight/cis/male privilege show through?
Nobody can tell you this, because risk in this context is purely a subjective estimation, and you are free to do what you please.
However, I do care about my privacy, which means that I want to minimize the amount of data about me available for sale or to others in general. For me the motivation is quite simple, while I do block ads everywhere too and I generally don't have an impact in terms of getting personalized ads, once the data is collected I have no idea what will be used for, by whom and for what purpose. It doesn't even matter if the data actually allows to infer accurate things about me, it's enough that someone (e.g., insurance company, employer, bank, government, etc.) is gullible enough to believe that inference is correct. In the book "Privacy is power" (written by Carissa Veliz) she also develops a very interesting argument about the fact that violating your privacy usually means also violating the privacy of the people near you (the people with whom you share demographic, the people you communicate with etc.). This could be another point of view to consider.Anyway, if for you the above is fine, there is no other significant risk you are taking, and you should keep using Gmail if that suits you.
A technical note. Secure email providers generally can have technical controls (i.e., encryption) to protect the body (content) of the email, and in some cases some small amount of metadata (e.g., Tuta encrypts also the subject). Generally though, you are still trusting the provider to perform that encryption (especially because a mail from Gmail -> Proton/Tuta would be encrypted by Proton/Tuta) and to not use metadata for any purpose besides delivering the emails. So privacy here doesn't mean absolutely removing the data from a third party, but it means giving it to a third party who uses it (due to contractual obligation, business incentives etc.) only for the intended purpose in a privacy-preserving way.
Good stuff to think about. Thanks! I think I’ll keep the email issue on my mental list of things to address as I keep FOSSifying and self hosting things.
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I suggest you give a read to "Privacy is power" by Carissa Veliz (on the board). She also gave a very good interview on the podcast "firewalls don't stop dragons".
I also don't think "cryptonerds" applies to people like Tim Berners Lee.
The problem is they continue to allow Andy Yen, the CEO of Proton, to remain on the board.
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The bottom line is that Proton does not collect your data to sell it for profit.
Why wouldn't they? Especially after the lasafare opinions expressed by their CEO.
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The problem is they continue to allow Andy Yen, the CEO of Proton, to remain on the board.
Yes that's true, and that seems quite natural. His poor communication in a tweet is not a reason to fire someone from a board, in my opinion. Especially since at the best of my knowledge he didn't do anything that harmed the privacy of anybody, nor he showed inclination to do so.
In any case, if you find yourself "assuming" that people that have years of track record caring about privacy and similar issue "don't care about privacy" or "are cryptonerds", maybe you should reflect a second.
This is why I said to go listen to her interview or read her pieces. -
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I cancelled my subscription because of technical reasons, but now I can add political reasons on top.
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Why wouldn't they? Especially after the lasafare opinions expressed by their CEO.
I have had to explain this a hundred times in this god damn thread. THEY ARE LEGALLY TIED TO THEIR FOUNDATION'S MISSION, BY SWISS LAW, TO PROTECT THEIR USERS' PRIVACY! They can't collect your info and sell it! They LEGALLY CAN'T.
Fucking hell!!!
And the fact that their CEO expressed support for ONE GOD DAMN DECISION that Trump made, doesn't make Proton a MAGAT company! They have a BOARD OF DIRECTORS that manage the fucking foundation.
I mean what the hell has this community become? It's all complaints and bitching about Proton all the fucking time now. Like we can't even discuss any god damn progress or changes or as questions about Proton and their services anymore without being bombarded by this bullshit.
If you want to complain about Proton and keep posting your fucking unfounded conspiracy theory crap, GO CREATE YOUR OWN ANTI-PROTON COMMUNITY.
FUCK!
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Why wouldn't they? Especially after the lasafare opinions expressed by their CEO.
They legally can't. Period.
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Sure sure. The guy who unprompted endorsed a trump appointment that has deep US Telco ties, bizarrly said "the GOP is the party for the little guy," had nothing but wonderful things to say about J.D vance, stated that Chuck Schumer slow rolled 2 internet privacy bills because of "quid pro quo" with his daughters working for big tech, used the phrase "triggered" unprompted, and just randomly added "88" to the end of his new user name.
Yeah, that guy is just neutral and disillusioned with the Democratic party.
It’s not utterly clear what spaces and politics he aligns with. That would just be wholley unknowable.
Well you're right, of course, his alignment is knowable. In fact, if you read the article I linked, there's lots of context for knowing his alignment. Maybe you should try reading it.
You're going to have to bring receipts for those other claims.
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techlore talked about this is their weekly livestream
to summarize he thinks it's got something to do with people on mastdodon bashing hate to the proton account there.
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They legally can't. Period.
What if you stored the data in an unregulated country? Check out their career page.
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While I understand the concern around not wanting to support Maga or far right leaning extremists. I take somewhat of a net neutral approach to this topic. Just because some company isn't doing something I like doesn't mean they haven't produced a good product. For instance people whine and bitch all the time about Apple using child labor bu that doesn't stop most people from owning a. IPhone because we like iphones. Amazon is a crazy huge company that has time and time again treated thier employees like trash and yet we still use amazon prime. What are we going to do if Farmers and slaughter houses all vote for Trump? Stop buying groceries? No. Most people only care when it's convenient to care. We don't really want change or progress because to be honest most of us aren't going to or want to take up arms and start another civil war all over again. The arguments and fighting we have in the states is nothing new. We'll stay silent and continue are word vomit on social platforms while the world eats us alive because really trying would be too hard. That's the truth.
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