[loteck]

Where are the stories about all the other mail providers who routinely cough up everything about your email account, including full content, metadata, and full payment details, on a daily basis?

Proton is one of the few services who accepts anonymous payment, and cannot themselves provide encrypted content in cleartext. They cannot save you from yourself, though.

[toofy]

i can’t speak for the journalists who wrote the story, but i assume it’s due to how prominently proton markets their email as safe/private/encrypted and then it turns out they may be sharing data with the swiss government who then gives it to the us government.

it absolutely should be news when the company who heavily promoted themselves to normies as safe, encrypted, and private is sharing customers data which is ending up in the hands of authoritarian foreign governments who are hunting for protesters.

[johanyc]

> Proton Mail Helped FBI Unmask Anonymous 'Stop Cop City' Protester

This is a highly deceptive title. As if Proton proactively helped FBI, which is not even close to truth. Proton is not even in direct contact with FBI. It's Swiss government that forwarded the info to FBI.

A much better title would be:

Proton Mail Payment Info Helped FBI Unmask Anonymous 'Stop Cop City' Protester

Or

FBI Unmasked Anonymous 'Stop Cop City' Protester via Proton Mail Payment Info

The point is informing the normies that your payment info is linked to your identity and a potential risk to your anonymity.

That clickbaity title makes me want to unsubscribe from their RSS feed.

> then it turns out they may be sharing data with the swiss government who then gives it to the us government.

Literally every legal business complies to law enforcement. They have to.

[encrypted_bird]

They accept anonymous payment? I could've sworn they require an account...

[wildzzz]

You can literally mail an envelope of cash to them and they'll credit your account. Probably the best way to remain anonymous. At worst, they'll have the zip code from where it was mailed from and potential fingerprints. But since an envelope isn't really a financial record, I doubt they would hold onto it.

[encrypted_bird]

Okay I think I just misunderstood. I guess I was assuming "paying for the service anonymously" meant "paying such that the person using the service is anonymous", not "anonymously paying for the service". Haha. Syntax is fun!