- cross-posted to:
- privacy@lemmy.world
- cross-posted to:
- privacy@lemmy.world
Unnecessary and deeply concerning bow to the new “king”
Update: position got backed up by an official Proton post on Mastodon, it’s an official Proton statement now. https://mastodon.social/@protonprivacy/113833073219145503
Update 2, plot-twist: they removed this response from Mastodon - seems they realize it exploded into their face!
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Oh, goddammit.
The writing was on the wall for proton for a while now
No it hasn’t. Back this claim up with some evidence
I wouldn’t call it “writing on the wall,” but they have done some not-so-good things over the last few years:
- Handing over data for their email services (which was legally required) (ref).
- Releasing a Bitcoin wallet. The problem for me is that Bitcoin is inherently not private.
- Lying in marketing. Proton claims “no data or speed limits” for their free VPN (ref), which is just plain wrong. If you download a few gigs, it will slow you down to a few Mbit (if I remember correctly). I even contacted their support about this, and they just said, “They are balancing the servers for the free VPN.” But then why was it fast in the beginning, and if I reconnected to the same server, would it be fast again. Just to be clear: I have no problem with the speed limit/balancing itself, just that they are lying about it.
- Proton incentivizing free email accounts to connect to a Gmail account to get 500 MB more storage. (You need to go through the “tutorial” steps to get the 500 MB extra, and one of them is to have a Google Mail account send all their emails to your new Proton inbox.)
This is why I personally decided against Proton.
These are useful data for making decisions about using their service, but not exactly indicative of support for a right wing authoritarian leader who lies more in one day than he has hairs on his entire body.
Edit: typo
Mostly true, that’s why I opened with “I wouldn’t call it writing on the wall.” But for me, it shows that they are not as privacy- and consumer-focused as they like to present themselves. Supporting Trump is just five steps further in this direction. (That’s just how I feel about it.)
that’s why I opened with “I wouldn’t call it writing on the wall.”
Damn; you’re right. My bad. I somehow missed your opener saying exactly the opposite of what you were saying.
Everything you said is true and verifiable, and worth considering when you decide which service to use. It’s a lot of reasons to favor the .onion/tor version of their service to limit what they have access to depending on your privacy stance.
They are indicative of opportunism and greed, which is exactly in line with preemptively sucking up to a future dictator.
Woah… an actually rock-solid account of problems with Proton! Nicely done.
This contrasts with the incoherent conspiracy theory spaghetti that has sometimes been trotted out to make the case against them.
1,2 and 3 are completely irrelevant. 1 is completely normal, 2 missed the point that the wallet (which I don’t use, I never owned crypto) has nothing to do with privacy and 4 is an optional marketing strategy to incentivise migration from google. Nothing is wrong with any of this.
This is interesting. I’m current using btguard, but was thinking about other vpn providers. I have a free protonmail email account and was wondering about their vpn service. Sounds like they are not so privacy oriented. And I assume NordVPN is a similar story?
Well, I’d say Proton is still better than most other options (open-source software, no ad trackers on the website and in apps). However, specifically for VPNs, I would recommend Mullvad or IVPN. If you are a bit more tech-savvy, you may also take a look at Cryptostorm. Of all three, only Mullvad is police-raid-proven to not store logs or other PII. The most important thing for me personally would be that the VPN company is not owned by a larger parent company, which in turn owns multiple different VPN providers. This alone excludes a lot of the heavily advertised providers (Private Internet Access, NordVPN, Surfshark, ExpressVPN, CyberGhost, OVPN, and probably a few more).
What did you go with out of curiosity?
Drive - Selfhosted Nextcloud
Email - Posteo/Tuta
VPN - Cryptostorm (IVPN/Mullvad are more user friendly)
Passwords - Keepass (Sync over my Nextcloud.)
Yea! I’m interested, I did not see that coming…
Neither did I.
They’ve been cooperating with law enforcement and handing data to the cops proactively since 2021.
Pay attention.
What do you mean with “proactively”?
Is this what you’re referring to?
The proactive part is when they shut your account down and report it to the cops but yeah, the cooperating with interpol by providing data that they claimed they didn’t keep is damning.
Where do they claim they don’t collect this information?
And then we have the communists making Lemmy. Is there any moderate developers lol. Valve is the only big company I can think of that isn’t annoying. All the faceless Linux devs are good too
Glances at the child gambling enabled by the steam marketplace, an issue being blatantly ignored by Valve leadership.
Buddy, I don’t know how to tell you this. I love Valve for all the good they do, but they got some serious skeletons, too.
Valve representatives were asked point blank if the third party gambling sites have a positive influence on their bottom line, and the dude replying sweated bullets for several seconds before nervously going “we… don’t have any data on that” while the rest stared daggers at him.
Coffeezilla has a recent video on the situation.
I love Steam, but thinking about switching to gog over this. Anybody have any ideas how we can let valve know this isn’t okay?
I mean I always use GoG, if given the option. But there’s almost always no GoG option. Publishers want some form of DRM.
I did this years ago and have like 500 games on GOG. Ended up going back to Steam due to features that gog just doesn’t have. Sigh.
I have a feeling I would feel the same. Its nice having everything in one place. What was missing for you?
All the social features, the workshop, easy browsing, and guides just off the top of my head. GOG is still good for those really retro 90s and early 2000s games though
I understand your frustration but I’m not casting some wide net here. I’m simply talking about political ideologies being in your face.
Link to whatever you’re talking about?
The timestamp in the coffeezilla video.
Watch the whole thing for more detail.
If it’s between fascism and communism, the answer is pretty fucking simple imo. Only one of those ideologies considers all people to be equal.
And no, I am not a communist, and I would not choose communism unless it was the only alternative to fascism.
Totally understand what you’re saying. Obviously I am on Lemmy. Just wish we didn’t have ideologies in our face all the time
I fear for what will happen to valve when Gabr step down in the future
I have a bigger fear of what happens to Linux when Torvalds retires. He took a break a while back, and it was an absolute shit show of a power struggle.
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lol got downvote bombed for desiring normal. Fucking Lemmy man. Honestly don’t know why I even use this platform anymore.
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Give some credit. Even if they aren’t politically aligned with your, they did make Lemmy open source for others to run with.
fuck off booooooot licker
The fuck are you on about?
Standing up for the little guy. Huh. Is that why billionaires and CEO are throwing literal tens of millions at Trump? Why he staffed his cabinet with billionaires? Why the center of his policy is tax cuts for the giga wealthy, at the expense of everyone else and the national debt, at a time where wealth inequality is literally tearing the country apart?
https://www.axios.com/2025/01/15/trump-windfall-fundraising-500-million
https://www.axios.com/2024/12/09/trump-wealth-cabinet-politicians-billionaires
These are objective, public facts. Like, I’m way more conservative than Lemmy’s center and willing acknowledge any good Trump does, but what reality is this guy living in? Who is this statement for? Who the heck does he think is using Proton services? He just pissed off his employees and customers for… What?
Seems a lot of people share this view that somehow he’s for the little guy, despite quite clearly being for the opposite. It’s the same over the pond, there’s a paranoia held by many that the government is out to persecute the common people. Very strange on both sides, it’s almost Orwell levels of Newspeak.
The official @protonprivacy@mastodon.social account replied and doubled down
protonprivacy@mastodon.social - @jonah
Corporate capture of Dems is real. In 2022, we campaigned extensively in the US for anti-trust legislation.
Two bills were ready, with bipartisan support. Chuck Schumer (who coincidently has two daughters working as big tech lobbyists) refused to bring the bills for a vote.
At a 2024 event covering antitrust remedies, out of all the invited senators, just a single one showed up - JD Vance.
1/2
protonprivacy@mastodon.social - @jonah By working on the front lines of many policy issues, we have seen the shift between Dems and Republicans over the past decade first hand.
Dems had a choice between the progressive wing (Bernie Sanders, etc), versus corporate Dems, but in the end money won and constituents lost.
Until corporate Dems are thrown out, the reality is that Republicans remain more likely to tackle Big Tech abuses.
2/2
(Less importantly, my response)
So sounds like their main concern is addressing the abuses of the FAANG monopolies, and only a Republican has talked to them about it.
I guess that is understandable in that very narrow lens, but it’s a bit laughable considering how all the big tech companies are also cozying up to the Trump administration. All this has done for me is make me wary of anything Proton does now.
Also the obviously reactionary and self-interested history of right wing reaction to FAANG, which largely has been fueled by a backlash to restraints on misinformation, and is riddled with special case exceptions (e.g. Palestine).
Actually I disagree on the latest part. I actually questioned, why google and Facebook had to go kiss the ring and pay some bucks to Trump, and didn’t have to do that before? This for me is a sign of a disalignment between big tech and the administration.
That said, it’s very much possible (I would say likely) trump won’t do shit and he just happens to have the “correct” position on this particular issue because it can be used to attack the Californian elite (I.e. dem elite). But it’s a matter of fact that it’s auspicable he will follow up with action on his words on this, even if for the wrong reasons.
These fuckers act like they’ve never heard of Lina Khan. Let’s see if Republicans try to replace her with someone with a stronger track record. Or, if they’re so serious about tech competition maybe they’ll get on board with net neutrality.
And look, I actually like Gail Slater (the Trump nominee that kicked off this thread). She’s got some bona fides, and I welcome Republicans taking antitrust more seriously, and rolling back the damage done by Robert Bork and his adherents (including and probably most significantly Ronald Reagan).
But to pretend that Democrats are less serious about antitrust than Republicans ignores the huge moves that the Biden administration have made in this area, including outside of big tech.
By my lights your response is quite effective, and while I appreciate the modesty I think it’s appropriate to bring it over here:
Unfortunately, there’s a line beyond which it’s not okay to view a political party through one issue, and IMO the Republicans have crossed that line.
Privacy is a human rights issue. Republicans have signaled very strongly that they’re going to violate more human rights. It’s a net loss for privacy if that happens, even if big tech is a bit more restrained.
I’m sorry @protonprivacy, you’ve failed this test IMO. It would be one thing to say that given that the Republicans are in power, that Gail Slater is a good pick, but that’s not the stance you took.
Fuck, they are dumb and bad businessmen. What’s the reason still to chose their product over Tuta, Posteo, Mullvad? They have lost their unique selling point as at least pretending being a neutral instance providing private services. Plain stupidity.
“Until corporate Dems are thrown out, the reality is that Republicans remain more likely to tackle Big Tech abuses.”
That has to be one of the most retarded things I have ever read. You would have to ignore the last 50 years and have a lobotomy to believe that nonsense.
That is somet nieve horseshit. Goddammit I don’t want to switch email providers again!
Insane that an official company account posted this.
Seems like they have deleted it now. Link is dead. Has there been any further comment?
This is a lot worse look than Andy saying something on Twitter. It’s one thing for a board member to express an opinion as an individual, it’s another to have an explicit corporate position… I don’t even think the usual big tech suspects are this stupid to publicly support an administration like this.
N.B. I originally went looking for a reason that maybe it was okay that Andy Yen was giving the thumbs up to Gail Slater. I thought this was an unfair internet pile-on. I think now it’s a fair internet pile-on.
EVERYONE! GET IN HERE!
Aaaaaaaand it’s deleted.
Did they just remove their comments?
Let’s not get carried away. The scope of the comment is pretty narrow if you read it closely. This is one member of a 5-person board that also includes Tim Berners-Lee. The foundation structure is also a protection against abuses.
Yes you are right, and no you are not. It is concerning and something to stay vigilent about in the upcoming times.
Can’t you both be right? One it is a very narrow complement and also it be very concerning that the “small tech” is also bowing harder than big tech.
But this may be the price for not donating?
Let’s not get carried away. The scope of the comment is pretty narrow if you read it closely
The only thing I want to hear from you is that you actively disavow Trump, or if you feel this is going to hurt your business, at least say nothing at all. Anything other than that marks you as a shameless suck-up, and I want nothing to do with you or your business.
Ergo, I want nothing to do with Proton. It’s time suck-ups pay the price and see their bottom lines drop because of their dubious choices.
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if you disavow every company contributing to the republican party/trump you might as well sell all your belongs, and learn to live off grid. no internet access, no power, no retail.
we just dont live in a black and white world. its lovely shades of depressing grey gradients.
if you disavow every company contributing to the republican party/trump you might as well sell all your belongs, and learn to live off grid. no internet access, no power, no retail.
As much as possible, I will take my business to companies that aren’t openly terrible.
we just dont live in a black and white world
Tell that to the orange utan. He sure is about to turn the word from RGB to 1-pixel color space.
Do you really think I want to split people into people I can talk to vs. people I want to avoid at all costs? Trump is doing that. He’s forcing shitty choices on everybody. I’d rather have constructive and peaceful interaction with my fellow man. But can you honestly shake hands with a magard and not feel sick to your stomach? I can’t.
right, i agree the idea is revolting… but the old man at the dog park who only watches fox news isnt inherently evil. hes brainwashed. hes a fellow human who if shown the light would absolutely change his tune. to abandon those people is to abandon civilization.
sure thats not everyone, but its enough. we just need to show them the truth… that theyve been lied to and actually do have a choice.
treating every conservative voter as you would trump himself is absolutely painting in black and white.
but the old man at the dog park who only watches fox news isnt inherently evil
I’m sorry but no.
You have the die-hard racist MAGAs with the flags and the red cap. Those can fuck right off obviously.
But you also have all the ordinary folks who are NOT die-hard MAGA, but who decided that it was okay to vote for a convicted felon who tried to overthrow the government. And guess what: in a sense, they’re even worse.
Voting for Trump is crossing a line. If you voted for Trump, I really don’t want anything to do with you because you have proved to me that your sense of morality and your respect for the institutions of this country are compromised.
Either that or so fucking stupid that interacting with them wouldn’t be worth my time. I honestly used to believe what originallucifer said, but after this election i’ve been thoroughly and completely radicalized.
remember that 88 million people who can vote, dont.
many of those that did vote are under a veil of propaganda. theyre not all rabid maga racists. its been proven that one-on-one interaction with adversaries can often change their minds. its just a slow, painful process.
we just need to show them the truth
I once read this on lemmy and it stuck with me. I think it applies here:
The autistic trait that bites me in the ass most often is the unshakable belief that if I can just show someone the truth, they’ll believe me.
True for me, and worse, I never seem to learn.
Fuck, that’s just exactly me. It’s an autism trait??
More and more, I approach wishing everyone was autistic lmao
no internet access, no power, no retail.
Does this actually sound like a utopia to anyone else or just me?
Sure, there’s not always an option, but sometimes there is. My tiny bit of $ isn’t going to make or break a company, but i try to give it to places who donate less to the big orange turd. I’m in a constant struggle choosing among home Depot, lowes, and Ace hardware.
Just be aware that this is a peculiarly American take. In Europe at least, most people will agree that somebody’s opinions cannot somehow pollute whatever it is that they produce. Be it a traded good, or art, or in this case software.
Americans did not invent the idea of voting with their wallets. What a preposterous claim
The concept that wrong opinions are like a taint that rubs off on everything they touch is indeed pretty uniquely American (with some echos in the rest of the anglosphere). It explains much of the craziness and bitterness of US politics in recent years. It is absolutely not replicated in, for example, Catholic Europe.
Avoiding giving your money to companies that go against your politics isn’t some irrational “tainted” concept. Not sure why you’re insisting it is. It’s just not supporting things you don’t want to happen. These companies donate to and otherwise push forward bad policy. Also, still not sure where you got that Americans invented any of this, or how it would relate to the recent increase in polarization
This is a guy’s personal opinion about one aspect of a politician’s program. The only fact he mentions is just that, a fact. His insinuation that Democrats are supported by big business is also fairly defensible. There’s no obvious link to his company’s practices. The opinion is banal and widespread. You and a bunch of others here are treating this semi-non-story like some kind of religious heresy. I can tell you’re American just from that fact.
His insinuation that Democrats are supported by big business is also fairly defensible
The truth comes out. You think this is a “both sides” thing, and you agree with it.
No, what’s being said ITT is that he’s praising trump prematurely and people don’t want to support a business run by people who do that. Incredibly simple, and might I add, logical.
This. Also, in Europe you can get internet, electricity, email from coops. There are even some “ethical banks” and some survivors from the 2008 (at least in Sapin) as “small savings rural banks” (cajas de ahorros).
And if you aren’t a rich progressist and can’t afford some expensive eco-bio-coop consume, there are 2d hand options, food recicling, stealing is easy enough (and nobody will shoot a bullet to you for this) and so on. So, yeah, off-the-grid is a legit option, but on-the-grid stealing electricity from huge power corps is super legit also. No need to go to the caves.
Even in case of no alternative (say, I must have an id and a cellphone number), this doesn’t justify anything from CEOs. Fun fact is, in the case of Proton, there is PLENTY of alternatives. So, let’s use all the colorful gradients instead of accepting to remain in a dark-gray scale
I mean for most people there are lots of variables here. You have to pick and choose your battles. This is the entire concept of The Good Place TV show.
The only people that are 100% “good” are living in a fuckin yurt.
Idk in the rest of Europe, but in France I’ve witnessed the contrary a lot of times. I do however not have a study on a big enough sample to make a claim, this is all anecdotal evidence on my side.
Examples please. France is the classic example of a country where most people put the art before the artist. The partial exception, unsurprisingly, is younger people who are more plugged into the poisonous world of America’s culture wars.
Even Michael Jackson?
Absolutely, yes. Great example. Great music. I guarantee you that almost everyone outside of the US-centric bit of the anglosphere agrees with me here.
Well, assuming they actually like music, of course.
Do you even use Proton?
I do yes - VPN. I won’t next month though.
It send a chill down my spine nonetheless
Yes. The “Trump was a good idea after all” take seems almost to be spreading like a meme at this point.
that also includes Tim Berners-Lee
You mean that traitorous piece of shit who sold us out to DRM on the Web?
Actually I ended up coming round to his view on this. If Firefox has stuck to its principles on DRM, then it would have been goodbye Firefox. And then you would have had no decent options at all, and neither would I. The setting is still opt-in.
Sometimes we have to compromise.
Yeah plus it’s a swiss company…with a crypto banking feature. They probably just want to attract Nazi bitcoin.
Sad. The way tech companies are changing stripes, we are about to hit a surveillance state by summer
The US are a surveillance state already. But I guess it could get even worse.
It’s like everyone forgot about the Patriot Act and NSA stuff. This shit has been going on through at least 4 different presidents. And that’s just the modern surveillance state.
I don’t understand how everyone can be so blind to the surveillance that already exists.
Literally all your communications or purchase or browsing history, 90% of people’s photos and contacts, everything you ever say near your phone/smart devices, your health data with devices like fitbit, cm resolution spy satelites, 4D maps of the entire globe being created via services like Pokemon Go, phones create and store in the cloud high resolution 3D maps of your face, mesh networked devices like Alexa now surveil without you even having internet access, your home and your exact location down to a meter are already being live spied on. Not to mention full remote access to all your devices.
Sometimes with a thin veneer of privacy on top of it, like Apple pretends to have.
Basically the only part of you that the surveillance state doesn’t constantly surveil already is your butthole.
Even avoiding just 10% of this surveillance in your daily life is almost impossible.
Soon smart toilets will also surveil your butthole.
It’s like people were born after Snowden’s leaks
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Taking the time to remove Google, embraced proton mail … Maybe it’s time to just write letters and send meme post cards.
Meme post cards are a great idea actually.
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That’s pretty cool, nice tool for the communication toolbox
hand drawn, because of these fingerprinting yellow dots
Same here; but I’m switching to tuta
There is no ethical consumption under capitalism, and that applies to tech. I pay for Proton and this is disappointing af but not shocking. Corporations and wannabe billionaires always fold to fascism.
Gonna start looking around at alternative email services to consider but I use my Proton email everywhere, so switching away is going to suck.
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Yeah, I think (hope?) we will find that his opinion is not echoed among them.
People don’t accidentally get on a board. The whole idea is that you actively search for and interview and even recruit people who best embody the values of your project. Then you get nominated and often voted.
no ethical consumption under capitalism
I agree with this as much as the next guy, but this is also kinda cope.
I take it as more of an observation and use it to be more mindful of what I buy, the services I use, etc. The reality is that we don’t know what happens behind the scenes with so much of this stuff, but we can still be conscious of it and use it as an opportunity to reduce clutter in our lives.
When you register a domain, you own the whole name-space of that domain:
All possible sub-domains of your domain are yours. All possible URLs on the domain are yours. All possible email addresses on the domain are yours.On your domain, you are also free to choose the linked services such as web, email calendar etc. If you are not satisfied with one provider, you are free to switch to another one at your own convenience.
I see a lot of good discussion here. I’ve been on proton for years now, using my own domain. While true that Andy is one of 5 board members, and it’s a nonprofit etc, these statements are raising hairs on my neck, personally.
Does anyone have a good guide on problems associated with self-hosting email?
Very disappointing that this is the CEO and founder of Proton. I’ll be moving my stuff elsewhere and deleting my account this week.
Just canceled my subscription.
Where are you moving? I’m interested in alternatives to Proton Mail and Proton Drive
Mail I have sorted it out with Tuta and passwords with bitwarden.
Now I need a Drive alternative. Any suggestions?
Self-hosted Nextcloud?
Why does he think Trump is against big tech when he’s working side by side with Musk?
Been using their paid service for months. I have so many aliases. I’m just surprised. Surely this company knows its biggest user base has to be too educated to let this slide.
Honestly I’ll still be using Proton and recommending it because it’s just good and a net benefit for everyone, but goddammit Andy you should’ve taken Swiss neutrality to heart this time and not said anything.
I literally just switched over from Google a few months ago and finally got all settled in. Just great. Does anyone know of any good alternative? I know Tuta exists, are there other options?
Why can’t we have nice things?
I can understand being fine with a nomination that aligns with his personal interests but from there the journey to « party of small people » likely takes a convoluted path.
It’s probably just a language thing. When he says small people he means sub-mega corporations. Actual humans probably pass beneath his notice.
So you’re thinking he means small in terms of Proton vs Google.
Well, he’s clearly not talking about small people like say, me or you compared to Trump or Musk. And let me be clear, he is probably wrong about that as well. If Trump is anti-google that is likely nothing more than a negotiating position.
I just assumed Google was kissing the ring to avoid antitrust.
The little man does some heavy lifting
I fucking love Oh Brother, Where Art Thou
