[sternenseemann]

I really hate the kind of “Privacy made in Germany” way of marketing, especially since I am german.

Mailbox.org seems decent from what I've heard but products advertised like this are mostly sheer bullshit. I don't know why transferring a “quality” label from (oldschool) engineering products to IT even works.

[SyneRyder]

It resonates with me. I don't think it's just a reference to engineering quality, Germany is more privacy conscious than some other countries. Whether it's the cypherpunk & privacy-tech scene of Berlin, or the awareness of the consequences of surveillance resulting from the GDR days.

Even in little things: like Germans using cash because they don't want to create an electronic credit card trail of where they were, or walking through Munich train station and seeing Snowden in all the news headlines (in 2013), while back home he was getting nowhere near as much news coverage (and certainly not the front page headline).

I don't know if any of this applies to Mailbox.org, but as a marketing phrase it works for me.

[I'm Australian, but an 'aspiring German'.]

[pluma]

> like Germans using cash because they don't want to create an electronic credit card trail of where they were

... and then using their Payback loyalty cards at every opportunity.

Don't get me wrong: many Germans hold out on loyalty cards and some people may indeed use cash to avoid a paper trail, but you make us Germans sound like mythical privacy-minded creatures which the vast majority of us is decidedly not.

[SyneRyder]

It's a relative thing - I know most Germans don't see themselves as privacy-minded, but the bar is so low everywhere else that the little things in Germany add up & make it stand out.

One example is browsing Google Street View and seeing how many buildings & houses are blurred out in Germany due to people sending privacy requests. I don't think I've ever seen that in Australia, but I keep encountering it when planning my trips to Germany. 3% of Germans opted-out of their house being included in Street View - a low percentage of Germans, but still crazy high compared to the rest of the world:

https://googlepolicyeurope.blogspot.com/2010/10/how-many-ger...

[pluma]

Just in case the moderators aren't catching it, the name of the throwaway that posted the dead comment is literally "pluma is a cunt" (in German).

I would respond to their arguments but I'm not sure they're making any and I don't think they're actually disagreeing with me (or even understanding what I'm saying).

[allendoerfer]

The mark is so overused, one day it will actually do what it was intended to [0]. I think that is a tragedy. One of the best brands in the world gets destroyed, because it is not actually a brand. Free rider problem.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Made_in_Germany

[sabertoothed]

Also German and I agree, too. When all other arguments fail, slap a stupid country-based label onto your product.

[nathancahill]

I think they're referencing the fact that it's outside of the US, for privacy reasons. Not the quality of the software engineering.

[_phaq]

Right, but at this point, German privacy laws are pretty horrible, too, and getting worse as we speak. The BND (German intelligence agency) also works closely with the NSA, and considering what's publicly known, it wouldn't surprise me, if the two exchange essentially all data behind closed doors.

[cJ0th]

What's more Interior Minister de Maizière is pushing an anti-encryption agenda.

[allendoerfer]

Last Interior Minister who tried something like that did not got away with it unharmed [0]. De Maizère is one of the (or the, nobody likes von der Leyen) last remaining big shots of the CDU, Merkel has not killed yet. She is a funny silent killer and does it by stating that "X has her fullest [sic] trust" ("hat mein vollstes Vertrauen") after which they resign [1]. The German government consists entirely of people who are no thread to her: her own team (consisting of uncharismatic men), old men, younger woman, experts nobody knows, people from the smaller CSU and politicians from the SPD, who destroyed itself so badly that Merkel can even reap the rewards for the liberal policies they introduce. Underwood could learn so much from her, she killed two political parties and a generation of politicians in her own, while herself surviving one (world-scale) crisis after another.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stasi_2.0

[1] http://hatmerkelschonihrvertrauenausgesprochen.de/

[limeyy]

Right, the war efficiency and quality car production sure created this stereotypes. It is quite amusing when you see how poorly things are ran in Germany irl. Like road works taking 10 years. Or the Berlin Airport debacle, which can teach Italian Mafia a lesson or two:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berlin_Brandenburg_Airport

And also: http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-36185194

[lima]

The biggest risk to your privacy is your provider getting hacked, not the NSA.

[cygned]

There's a German law forcing telcos and email providers with more than 10.000 customers to provide access for law enforcements.

German wikipedia article about it: https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/E-Mail-%C3%9Cberwachung

[Bino]

Makes sense for their point of view. Pro tip: if you don't want your government spy on you in the democracy you live in. Store your data in another less interested in you.

[e12e]

Just a reminder that if you choose a friendly/allied country - they will spy on you (a foreigner without privacy rights) and share data with "your" intelligence services (those to whom you might be more interesting). If you choose a hostile country they might spy on you and "your" intelligence services will try to hack your provider because spying on hostile countries is one of the things they do...

[gurubert]

No, see here: https://posteo.de/blog/posteo-zur-m%C3%A4r-von-der-abh%C3%B6...

The same applies to mailbox.org

[type0]

If you actually listen to the guy's talks (Heinlein) on youtube, you will see that he cares deeply about privacy. That's all it means, it doesn't mean that the whole German society cares more than others about privacy.