6 ms·

Is Office 365 any better - or am I stuck running my own mail server if I really want privacy?

by xfitm3 7y ago

samat 7y ago
Fastmail
- Avalaxy 7y ago
  That does not answer his question, whether Office365 is better for privacy or not.
- therein 7y ago
  I was going to recommend Fastmail as well. I'm a paying customer and very happy with it.
  - hombre_fatal 7y ago
    Just don't miss a payment or your email address will be up for grabs again. :)
- Droobfest 7y ago
  I like everything about Fastmail, but they're Australian and Australia seems to be one of the worst jurisdictions when it comes to data privacy. See this thread: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18654434 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18654434
- drevil-v2 7y ago
  Absolutely not. Fastmail is an Australian company and is subject to one of the most intrusive digital surveillance requirements in the Western world. And thanks to the Five Eyes framework, easily shared among intelligence agencies. They do not compete on Privacy at all in my opinion. So then the choice comes down to price, features and economic viability of the organisation. I think price and features they are on par with Office 365, well at least for individuals not for enterprises. But in terms economic longevity I think Microsoft wins hands down. Fastmail might be days away from bankruptcy, none of us would know as it is private company. I would rather have my personal email, that is the glue to modern life, with a Trillion dollar company than with a relatively new minnow.
hatfortguy 7y ago
You could try Protonmail. It's secure and supports GPG out of the box. They have a free tier that they run as a "charity case". As with anything where your data _isn't_ the price, they have paid tiers too.
- hatfortguy 7y ago
  I realize that doesn't answer your question about 365, but I meant to simply let you know there are good privacy friendly paid services too :)
zeeZ 7y ago
Office 365 is a paid product, so I would hope so. I also don't recall them trying to be your personal assistant. A first step to the answer to that question would probably be to compare all the terms and contracts. If you really really want your privacy you're better off running your own. But then a lot of your contacts probably use a provider you didn't trust hosting your email, so there goes a large chunk of that privacy again...
Spooky23 7y ago
No data in the hands of a third party custodian is secure. You need to delete your mail in less than 30 days, and store content you want to preserve in your home.
- godelski 7y ago
  That's a little much to say. Because setting up a good secure sever isn't trivial.
  - windexh8er 7y ago
    Actually it can be. There are free archiving solutions for personal use. I run Mailarchiva [0] at home and it's fantastic for archiving mail and completely free for personal use. Encrypted on disk and you don't need to run it all the time if you don't want. Just fire up the VM for a few hours a month to archive the delta. Has been flawless for me so far and the archive searching is very fast. [0] https://www.mailarchiva.com/ https://www.mailarchiva.com/
    - godelski 7y ago
      How does it deal with spam filtering? This is something I understood to be a problem, along with security.
      - windexh8er 7y ago
        This is archiving, not a replacement for a mail server. This way you can delete all mail from your provider >30 days, for example, and still keep searchable copies off net. It's a nice middle ground and, yes, Google would still have seen all of your mail - however it wouldn't have access to it long term.
  - Spooky23 7y ago
    As someone who ran a significant email service for several years and dealt with many variations of discovery requests, no it isn’t. Nobody said that you need to run a mail server, just keep your data in your possession. If you are worried about privacy with respect to your data, you only have limited protection for 180 days if it is on the providers server. (See Stored Communications Act) In the US, the 4th amendment ensures that you are “secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects”. But when you put your papers or effects in the hands of a third party who isn’t your attorney, you lose much of those rights. GMail IMO is the most honest of these services, as they are very clear that your privacy is limited in scope. Fastmail, Protonmail, etc imply things that are not as meaningful as one may think. See: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Third-party_doctrine https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Third-party_doctrine
manigandham 7y ago
You can also pay for GSuite for your own domains for better controls and support levels. A 3rd-party will never be as private as running your own mail server but that's not exactly easy either these days.
- vanadium 7y ago
  For the record, I have a paid business GSuite account for our household, and my purchase history was out there as well.
  - javagram 7y ago
    I have a paid business gsuite for my personal mail also, but my purchase history was blank. Weird. I actually would like to turn it on if I could... I have labels and filters set up on Gmail to try and do the same thing but having google do it for me would be great.
- joecool1029 7y ago
  > You can also pay for GSuite for your own domains for better controls and support levels. As a reseller of GSuite I can tell you this is plainly wrong. Support is virtually nonexistent for paid GSuite (by this I mean, it's the same outsourced team with no escalation path to anyone in engineering). Avoid at all costs for a business.
  - manigandham 7y ago
    Thanks for the input but we run on Gsuite and haven't had a single problem compared to Office 365 which locked us out repeatedly because some rep in some outsourced support center wasn't available. The reality is every provider is both good and bad, and you're unlikely to get any major support unless you're the CTO of a major corporation.
    - cmroanirgo 7y ago
      There's a big difference in moving from one provider to another (and having less problems) vs claiming that there's better support to be had with the paid version of gmail (compared to it's free offering).
techslave 7y ago
if you “really” want privacy, you must use e2e encryption eg pgp. i’m pretty sure that’s not what you meant, so you need to clarify your question.
away_throw 7y ago
I recommend Posteo. They've been great to me so far. They are 12 euro a year and run on renewable energy plus have sane privacy standards. All payments are anonymous according to their website. But GPG will always be king for privacy.
ulfw 7y ago
I'm paying $48 for Microsoft Hosted Exchange with my own domain and am very happy about it. Exchange pushes to Mac, iPhone and iPad, good sync, no ads or similar shenanigans. It's just badly marketed but here it is for those who are interested: https://products.office.com/en-us/exchange/exchange-online https://products.office.com/en-us/exchange/exchange-online
oedenfield 7y ago
I work for Microsoft but not on any O365, Outlook.com, or advertising team. Outlook.com (free public service) does not scan emails for ads - I filed a support ticket for asking about this year's ago. Additionally, if you pay for O365 (Home or Personal, maybe just Home?) and use the same Microsoft account for email (via Outlook.com) then no ads are displayed at all.

Is Office 365 any better - or am I stuck running my own mail server if I really want privacy?

by xfitm3 7y ago

Is Office 365 any better - or am I stuck running my own mail server if I really want privacy?

samat 7y ago

Fastmail

Avalaxy 7y ago
That does not answer his question, whether Office365 is better for privacy or not.
therein 7y ago
I was going to recommend Fastmail as well. I'm a paying customer and very happy with it.
- hombre_fatal 7y ago
  Just don't miss a payment or your email address will be up for grabs again. :)
Droobfest 7y ago
I like everything about Fastmail, but they're Australian and Australia seems to be one of the worst jurisdictions when it comes to data privacy. See this thread: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18654434 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18654434
drevil-v2 7y ago
Absolutely not. Fastmail is an Australian company and is subject to one of the most intrusive digital surveillance requirements in the Western world. And thanks to the Five Eyes framework, easily shared among intelligence agencies. They do not compete on Privacy at all in my opinion. So then the choice comes down to price, features and economic viability of the organisation. I think price and features they are on par with Office 365, well at least for individuals not for enterprises. But in terms economic longevity I think Microsoft wins hands down. Fastmail might be days away from bankruptcy, none of us would know as it is private company. I would rather have my personal email, that is the glue to modern life, with a Trillion dollar company than with a relatively new minnow.

hatfortguy 7y ago

You could try Protonmail. It's secure and supports GPG out of the box. They have a free tier that they run as a "charity case". As with anything where your data _isn't_ the price, they have paid tiers too.

hatfortguy 7y ago
I realize that doesn't answer your question about 365, but I meant to simply let you know there are good privacy friendly paid services too :)

zeeZ 7y ago

Office 365 is a paid product, so I would hope so. I also don't recall them trying to be your personal assistant. A first step to the answer to that question would probably be to compare all the terms and contracts. If you really really want your privacy you're better off running your own. But then a lot of your contacts probably use a provider you didn't trust hosting your email, so there goes a large chunk of that privacy again...

Spooky23 7y ago

No data in the hands of a third party custodian is secure. You need to delete your mail in less than 30 days, and store content you want to preserve in your home.

godelski 7y ago
That's a little much to say. Because setting up a good secure sever isn't trivial.
- windexh8er 7y ago
  Actually it can be. There are free archiving solutions for personal use. I run Mailarchiva [0] at home and it's fantastic for archiving mail and completely free for personal use. Encrypted on disk and you don't need to run it all the time if you don't want. Just fire up the VM for a few hours a month to archive the delta. Has been flawless for me so far and the archive searching is very fast. [0] https://www.mailarchiva.com/ https://www.mailarchiva.com/
  - godelski 7y ago
    How does it deal with spam filtering? This is something I understood to be a problem, along with security.
    - windexh8er 7y ago
      This is archiving, not a replacement for a mail server. This way you can delete all mail from your provider >30 days, for example, and still keep searchable copies off net. It's a nice middle ground and, yes, Google would still have seen all of your mail - however it wouldn't have access to it long term.
- Spooky23 7y ago
  As someone who ran a significant email service for several years and dealt with many variations of discovery requests, no it isn’t. Nobody said that you need to run a mail server, just keep your data in your possession. If you are worried about privacy with respect to your data, you only have limited protection for 180 days if it is on the providers server. (See Stored Communications Act) In the US, the 4th amendment ensures that you are “secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects”. But when you put your papers or effects in the hands of a third party who isn’t your attorney, you lose much of those rights. GMail IMO is the most honest of these services, as they are very clear that your privacy is limited in scope. Fastmail, Protonmail, etc imply things that are not as meaningful as one may think. See: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Third-party_doctrine https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Third-party_doctrine

manigandham 7y ago

You can also pay for GSuite for your own domains for better controls and support levels. A 3rd-party will never be as private as running your own mail server but that's not exactly easy either these days.

vanadium 7y ago
For the record, I have a paid business GSuite account for our household, and my purchase history was out there as well.
- javagram 7y ago
  I have a paid business gsuite for my personal mail also, but my purchase history was blank. Weird. I actually would like to turn it on if I could... I have labels and filters set up on Gmail to try and do the same thing but having google do it for me would be great.
joecool1029 7y ago
> You can also pay for GSuite for your own domains for better controls and support levels. As a reseller of GSuite I can tell you this is plainly wrong. Support is virtually nonexistent for paid GSuite (by this I mean, it's the same outsourced team with no escalation path to anyone in engineering). Avoid at all costs for a business.
- manigandham 7y ago
  Thanks for the input but we run on Gsuite and haven't had a single problem compared to Office 365 which locked us out repeatedly because some rep in some outsourced support center wasn't available. The reality is every provider is both good and bad, and you're unlikely to get any major support unless you're the CTO of a major corporation.
  - cmroanirgo 7y ago
    There's a big difference in moving from one provider to another (and having less problems) vs claiming that there's better support to be had with the paid version of gmail (compared to it's free offering).

techslave 7y ago

if you “really” want privacy, you must use e2e encryption eg pgp. i’m pretty sure that’s not what you meant, so you need to clarify your question.

away_throw 7y ago

I recommend Posteo. They've been great to me so far. They are 12 euro a year and run on renewable energy plus have sane privacy standards. All payments are anonymous according to their website. But GPG will always be king for privacy.

ulfw 7y ago

I'm paying $48 for Microsoft Hosted Exchange with my own domain and am very happy about it. Exchange pushes to Mac, iPhone and iPad, good sync, no ads or similar shenanigans. It's just badly marketed but here it is for those who are interested: https://products.office.com/en-us/exchange/exchange-online https://products.office.com/en-us/exchange/exchange-online

oedenfield 7y ago

I work for Microsoft but not on any O365, Outlook.com, or advertising team. Outlook.com (free public service) does not scan emails for ads - I filed a support ticket for asking about this year's ago. Additionally, if you pay for O365 (Home or Personal, maybe just Home?) and use the same Microsoft account for email (via Outlook.com) then no ads are displayed at all.