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Their marketing copy still says "Anonymous. Opt out of tracking or logging of personally identifiable information". And "Unlike competing email services, we do
by panarky 5y ago
Their marketing copy still says "Anonymous. Opt out of tracking or logging of personally identifiable information".
And "Unlike competing email services, we do not track you."
Nowhere does it say "Unless your government asks the Swiss government then we'll capture, log and report every IP address you use".
Source: https://protonmail.com/security-details https://protonmail.com/security-details
Screenshot: https://imgur.com/a/gfUcYme https://imgur.com/a/gfUcYme
And this marketing copy was rewritten after this incident.
Before this incident it didn't say "opt out of tracking". How does one "opt out", by using Tor?
It used to say, in bold print, "No tracking or logging of personally identifiable information".
No weasel words about requiring the user to take some unspecified action to "opt out". No asterisks or caveats or warnings of any kind.
It also used to explicitly promise: "we do not record metadata such as the IP addresses used to log into accounts".
Now that part is mysteriously gone.
Pretty shitty to quietly flush this down the memory hole, then pretend nothing's changed, blaming and gaslighting users for not understanding.
Source: https://web.archive.org/web/20210607023937/https://protonmail.com/security-details https://web.archive.org/web/20210607023937/https://protonmai...
Screenshot: https://imgur.com/a/R1muChN https://imgur.com/a/R1muChN
- luckylion 5y agoThis point is weird. No reasonable person would understand that sentence to include "and we won't even comply with court orders".
- panarky 5y agoSeems reasonable to understand "no tracking or logging" to mean that in the event of a government demand to produce records, they could honestly reply that no records exist. Other email providers keep logs that they provide to governments when there's a legal order. What's the point of bragging about "no tracking or logging" if you're just going to track and log like every other email provider if the government asks for it?
- luckylion 5y ago> Seems reasonable to understand "no tracking or logging" to mean that in the event of a government demand to produce records, they could honestly reply that no records exist. And they would. They don't keep those records. However, when a government agency shows up with a court order that states they have to cooperate and provide those records going forward they must comply. > What's the point of bragging about "no tracking or logging" if you're just going to track and log like every other email provider if the government asks for it? Again: a reasonable person would not assume that their email provider is a criminal enterprise that does not comply with the law.
- lordlimecat 5y ago>Seems reasonable to understand "no tracking or logging" to mean that in the event of a government demand to produce records, they could honestly reply that no records exist. No one with the least understanding of the internet could suppose that Protonmail could not be forced to provide the IP address associated with a user's login, which I assume is what happened here.
- orestarod 5y agoThey did promise that, though. One lie leads to infinite more.
- OrvalWintermute 5y agoAppreciate the analysis! I think PM's approach is more lipstick on a pig. It may be a good looking pig compared to the other pigs (gmail), but it is still a pig. Blue ribbon pigs are still a pig. Am expecting some real change if PM wants my $.