Proton

Official statement from Proton, after I filed a complaint:

Hello,   Thank you for contacting us.   We appreciate you reaching out, please be informed that we have shared a response to the community feedback which can be found here: https://www.reddit.com/r/ProtonMail/comments/1i2nz9v/on_politics_and_proton_a_message_from_andy/   We hope you find this information helpful. Should you have any further issues, questions or perhaps a concern that you'd like us to address, please do not hesitate to let us know.

Kind regards,

Ethan Customer Support Proton Mail

My response:

Hi,

Thank you for your response. I wish this would clarify everything, however, the comments he made on Reddit were done with the official Proton admin account, therefore making his personal comments an official Proton statement. https://snoo.habedieeh.re/r/ProtonMail/comments/1i1zjgn/comment/m7ahrlm/ Next to the fact that he posted his personal believes as an official Proton statement, the claims he made are factual untrue, making Proton spread fake news (as noted in the comments under Yen his statement). If it indeed it is just his personal opinion, he should have posted everything from his personal account only.

I have my personal opinion which I don't mind sharing with others, but I won't use a company account to make these claims as that could get me fired.

Andy Yen didn't make Proton a part of his opinion by just sharing it, but by sharing it as Proton. I believe Proton should take action if Proton doesn't want to be affiliated with Yen his personal opinions and with the fake news he spreads.

I would like to know what Proton will do about this incident and how Proton will ensure this doesn't happen again in the future as incidents like these make Proton look unprofessional and breaks trust with its customer base, one which holds privacy and security high. When the CEO is so easy to manipulate by populists and fake news from another country and makes this official Proton statements, how can the company ensure what it stands for.

Kind regards,

W

Cancelled my yearly subscription. Mozilla, for all its faults, is at least doing things for a better and more open internet that provides a semblance of privacy. Most importantly they are smart enough to not bootlick in public.

Gonna migrate my passwords to Mozilla pass manager and move my vpn to something like Mozilla vpn or mullvad or something.

This is def not what going full MAGA looks like, lmao. This tame AF.

People forget that the current antitrust actions against Big Tech were started under the first Trump admin.

And you seem to have forgotten that Trump's Attorney General William Barr tried to force backdoors in encryption.

So shut the fuck up Andy, you're out of your element.

This isn’t going “full MAGA”. This isn’t even going half MAGA. Shit, this isn’t even going a little MAGA. He’s very clearly saying he approves of the pick.

Getting real fuckin tired of having to always find 'alternatives'. Can't yall rich bastards just stop being weird and be content with making good products. Just cause you have money, doesn't mean you need to have a public opinion on anything, ever

Here's what he said in Reddit

Source: https://snoo.habedieeh.re/r/ProtonMail/comments/1i1zjgn/comment/m7ahrlm/

Andy here, since it's my original post that's being reposted here, let me comment further.

My post is talking about Gail Slater, who is by all measures, actually a good pick, with a solid track record of being on the right side of the antitrust issue. Yes, she happens to be nominated by Trump, but her record speaks for itself.

This is not going to be a popular opinion, but on the specific issue of antitrust, Democrats fell short. 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. In the aftermath of this failure, great people like former Democratic rep David Cicilline left congress, leaving few strong voices for antitrust left in the Democratic party. In the meantime, at a 2024 event covering antitrust remedies, out of all the invited senators, just a single one showed up - JD Vance.

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. And that's a missed opportunity for Dems, because by and large, support for cracking down on corporate monopolies is popular on both sides of the political spectrum. Unfortunately, corporate capture of Dems is real and in the end money won. It is hard to see how this changes, and Republicans are likely to lead the antitrust charge in the coming years.

From that perspective, and going back to my original post, Gail is a great pick. One should not equate our support of Gail for Proton not being neutral anymore. We continue to call out bad behavior from both sides, whether it's Dems or Republicans, on our core issues. Just a few weeks ago, we were called out for being in bed with Soros because we gave money to too many "liberal" organizations: https://proton.me/blog/2024-lifetime-fundraiser-results No, the Proton Foundation isn't the new Soros either (even if we may coincidentally fund some of the same things sometimes). We simply stick with our strongly held core believes, and leave politics out of it, because the issues we care about, should be apolitical.

UPDATE: I posted another comment further below in response to a user, but I'll reproduce it here for completeness:

I don't really want to wade further into what is obviously a very polarizing political topic, but since you are asking for some thoughts, I can share.

We have been fighting big corporate interests since the very beginning. People have short memories, so few remember that in 2019 and 2020, we were working with congressional Democrats on this issue. We're even cited a dozen times in the report, which by the way, was partially authored by Lina Khan, who at that time worked with Ciciline. This is the report here: https://proton.me/blog/congress-antitrust-report

The American Innovation and Choice Online Act (AICOA) was also mentioned. Guess what, we supported that too: https://proton.me/blog/congress-stand-up-to-big-tech More than with blog posts, I personally was on Capitol Hill trying to convince senators who were on the fence, on both the Democratic and Republican side. The votes where there, but in 2022, Democrats controlled the Senate, and ultimately Sen. Schumer decided what gets to be voted on, and as we know, AICOA was not advanced.

Epic vs Apple was also mentioned. Well, we supported that one too. In fact, we were one of the founding companies of the Coalition for App Fairness, along with, yes, Epic: https://proton.me/blog/coalition-for-app-fairness

The point I am trying to make is, in the past 10 years, our position on corporate monopolies has not moved. But US politics has shifted, and the parties themselves have moved. We're huge supporters of Lina Khan and her work. But you know who else agrees with Lina Khan on Big Tech? Actually, JD Vance, as he's publicly stated: https://fortune.com/2024/08/11/jd-vance-5000-child-tax-credit-support-ftc-lina-khan-tech-regulation/ Can you imagine the Republican Vice Presidents of the past taking this position?

It is not a bad thing that Republicans have moved so far on this issue, and are now in a position to go even further than Democrats have managed in the past four years. It's a good thing, and something that should be welcomed irrespective of your political leanings. Ultimately, we will judge actions, but for now, I am supportive of Gail Slater, just as I was supportive of Lina Khan. And honestly, it should not matter that one is a Republican, and the other is a Democrat.

I can deal with Andy Yen being a dumbass in his own time, but the official Proton reddit account doubling down on this shit is over the line for me.

I literally just renewed for 2 years a couple days ago. I will be looking for alternatives and hopefully I can get a partial refund or something.

Wait I'm confused why this is him going full MAGA?

I legitimately don't want the Republicans in charge of anything unless they drastically change their policies, but this actually seems like a pretty decent pick considering the absolute trash that trump has nominated so far?

If she is actually trying to break up these companies that's generally good right? We've been wanting to break monopolies for a while.

If Republicans go so far right that they swing back around to the left I'd be fine with that lol

I'm not voting because of the letter next to their name, I'm voting because of policies. If someone wants to provide universal health care, protect the environment, break up monopolies, stop price gouging, stop hating gay and trans people for no reason, etc. I will vote for them. And yes I understand that the republican party as it is is the least likely group of people to ever do that. But the democrats didn't do it either they just pay it lip service when they want votes.

Vote for actual policies you want, not because someone pretends they're a D or an R.

Mentioning that Democrats are trash on dealing with corporations is just fine. Good, even.

Lying through your god damn teeth that Republicans are going to do anything other than lie to gain more leverage for their jihad to fuck over their fellow man is delusional at best.

CEOs having a "who can suck off Trump best" contest?

Oh shit he was a Trump apologist already in 2016. Look at this awesome whataboutism.

https://proton.me/blog/trump-control-nsa-privacy

It is not Trump’s fault

It is tempting to blame all this on Trump, but that is taking the easy way out. All Trump does is put a new face on the existing privacy problem, so now it concerns a segment of the population that previously didn’t care as much. Proton Mail users have always come from both the left and right side of the political spectrum. Today, we are seeing an influx of liberal users, but Proton Mail has also long been popular with the political right, who were truly worried about big government spying, and the Obama administration having access to their communications. Now the tables have turned.

The same terror the political right has experienced is now being felt in liberal bubbles such as Silicon Valley for the first time. The left is correct to be terrified of a Trump-led NSA snooping on their communications, especially since Silicon Valley giants like Google and Facebook can be forced to spy on users on behalf of Trump’s NSA. However, this precedent was not set by Trump – he hasn’t even taken office yet. The first major incident of a US tech giant being complicit in US government spying actually took place in 2015 under the Obama administration(new window).

Can someone remind me about the terror campaigns we had against the political right before Trump was elected?

okay cool beans, time to cancel my protonvpn subscription 💀

So is this an intentional or unintentional get off of proton message? Maybe it's a subtle "we are compromised but warrant Canaries don't work message? Lol..

Well I no longer will be recommending proton to people. Can't trust anyone this stupid with privacy.

Wait, so his solution to abuse in big tech is...hiring someone who formerly worked in big tech...? Okay...

I'd like to know what maga is going to do for the little guy besides more grifting.

How did both him and and the rest of the board think this was a smart thing to stand by? Does he really think people interested in privacy also support Trump?

What a way to alienate your entire customer base

What the actual fuck. They are not even an American company. US does really try to dismantle Europe.

Here is our official response [...] the reality is that Republicans remain more likely to tackle Big Tech abuses.

lol

I'll be leaving Proton fucking immediately.

Just canceled my subscription and let them know in the comments it was because of this.

And that's that... I was building up momentum at home to just move to proton mail. Now? Now I got no choice but to figure out another way to self host my own email somehow. That's an f-ing PITA.