- cross-posted to:
- technology@lemmy.world
- cross-posted to:
- technology@lemmy.world
Summary
Proton Mail, known for its privacy-first email services, faced backlash after CEO Andy Yen praised the Republican Party and its antitrust stance.
The company initially posted and deleted a statement supporting Yen’s comments, later claiming an “internal miscommunication” and reiterating its political neutrality.
Critics question Proton’s impartiality, particularly as it cooperates with Swiss authorities on legal data requests.
Privacy advocates warn that political alignments could undermine trust, especially for Proton’s users—journalists and activists wary of government surveillance under administrations like Trump’s.
Excluding Switzerland from the equation, most in the US don’t have + or - for Switzerland unless it’s banking.
You can never trust any company to put your needs first. A good moral company has at least its founders, private funders, employees, and vendors to look after before they worry about your wants and needs.
Proton was kinda small. 500 employees for a communications company isn’t bad.
Good start.
Proton made a name for itself. WE ARE PRIVACY FIRST and they mostly delivered on that in technical capabilities.
So far, so good.
Then they doxed someone’s IP (french?) due to a remote government order.
Not great, but anyone would do that. There have to be limits. That said, they now clearly play ball with governments.
All the other providers would do the same. They’re now on par with most, but less likely to sell all my data down the river. But my needs are to keep my secrets state secret level. (or so I think)
Then he crawls up Trumps ass.
Now, I’m doing nothing illegal. Nothing immoral. Nothing questionable by the previous administrations standards, but what happens If I start to protest? If I subscribe to democratic news sources, is this jackass going to train an AI on my and hand my name address and phone number to the neo facists running my country now?
We put our eggs wherever we think they can best be served conveniently and for the best price.
You can also choose to not put your eggs anywhere. You can secure your email but not sending any.
we were trying to choose price+convenience+security.
knock one of those legs out, it’s not a table anymore.
This comment needs more upvotes inmho. This is exactly right. It’s how I followed this history myself. They built on Privacy first. Now there are red flags which were not clear before.
On the hacker news thread: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42837181
They discuss the topic and there is only a single reply from ProtonPrivacy, saying it’s miscommunication and blah blah.
It was not enough to dispel my sense of unease and concern and a single comment isn’t exactly ‘fighting to set the record straight’.
My 2¢.
They’ve done a lot of damage control. They were on Reddit too, They spin it that the pick he made was actually a reasonable pick, (1/50 even if they’re right on this one and I don’t think they are) but they don’t address that he went on to Twitter and tagged Trump to try to gain favor.
One can’t reach out to the man trying to dismantle democracy and say “hey buddy, you’re doing great! Can I get in on some of that?” and still try to claim centrist.
I mean, “spin it”, that’s literally what the tweet said, in a response to a tweet (from trump, hence the tag) that announced that pick. He praised the pick and generalized on the fact that republicans are more likely than democrats to fight big tech. Good or wrong that’s everything that was said and a perfectly legitimate opinion, even if I may disagree.
This also happened in December, not yesterday.