[fundatus]

Over in the Proton subreddit we've been wondering if there is currently some kind of Anti-Proton campaign going on. Constantly people will loudly complain about completely benign things and get lot's of people agreeing with them.

[unethical_ban]

I thought the same thing last night when this was first posted. Lots of "if they can't get this right do they even care about users" as if a slipped-up miscategorization of a marketing email is the same as an oil company leaking waste into a river.

I operate on the assumption they hold firm on their technical commitments of encrypted email, email obfuscation, decent VPN and a solid password manager.

Call them out on mistakes, sure, but this blog post was written like a manifesto for something so minor.

[this_user]

Every time there is anything posted about Proton on HN, there is an immediate wave of super negative comments, none of which ever offer any arguments of substance. It's always just some vague allegations, and this has been the case for years. It's pretty obvious what is going on.

[anonymous908213]

These vapid fanboy-esque comments make me significantly more likely to believe that Proton is astroturfing than the inverse that you are implying, that some unspecified actor is engaging in a conspiracy to impugn Proton's reputation. That said, if criticising Proton is indeed a paid vocation and you have some concrete details about where I can get paid for my comments daring to doubt the uncompromising holiness of Proton, I'm all ears.

[7bit]

Calling it an "anti- Proton campaign" or "benign" is just rhetorical hand waving. Those words let you dismiss criticism without engaging with the substance. Proton did deliberately email people who opted out. That is a GDPR violation, full stop. They are a large, well resourced company; "oops" is not an excuse. Criticism over that is not hysteria or bandwagoning, and blaming people for speaking up instead of the company for breaking the rules is weak.