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I know you said based in the EU and Fastmail are based in Australia I think, but they are great. Integrates easily with email, calendar, and contacts clients us

by uhtred 5y ago

I know you said based in the EU and Fastmail are based in Australia I think, but they are great. Integrates easily with email, calendar, and contacts clients using imap/caldav/carddav. What makes you consider google to be privacy conscious? Aren't they just scanning your emails 24/7 to profile you for advertising?

dankwizard 5y ago
I'd recommend against Australian based - There are laws that state companies must be able to decrypt encrypted user data if required, and for a backdoor to be in place if they require access. A "Data Disruption Warrant" allows them to add, copy, delete or modify your data. "Account Takeover Warrant" will remove your access to an account but still allow them full access
- uhtred 5y ago
  If I was going to send truly sensitive information I wouldn't use email anyway, or I would but with gpg encryption, so I'm not too worried about the fact that fastmail might allow some government agency access. What fastmail will offer is privacy from 3rd parties such as advertisers and data brokers.
  - dividedbyzero 5y ago
    There have been attempts by police where I live to exploit such setups as loopholes to request data from companies in foreign jurisdictions that they wouldn't be able to obtain from domestic ones, and since there is no "fruit of the poisonous tree" doctrine over here, such evidence has actually been admitted in court, or at the least used to enable parallel construction. Given that the Aussies are doubling down on their police state, I'd rather not expose myself to such shenanigans (and if my data ends up in some predictive policing data warehouse, I'd prefer if it was just one, not two). As for advertisement surveillance, I'd have to take Fastmail's word, whereas with a domestic provider, there's the GDPR that is a lot harder to evade for them than for some Australian company.
dividedbyzero 5y ago
> Fastmail are based in Australia Like sibling said, doesn't Australia have a pretty bad track record with respect to data protection (especially data owned by foreigners?) If ease of use were the #1 priority I'd stick with Google, I've never had a single issue in over a decade with them. > What makes you consider google to be privacy conscious? I probably didn't make that clear enough, but I don't consider them that, hence why I'm looking for something more privacy-conscious than Google (ideally not just a little more but I'm willing to make some compromises if that means I can keep using iOS Mail and the like)
- uhtred 5y ago
  I don't think I suggested ease of use was the number 1 priority? Who are you looking for privacy from? Unless you use gpg/pgp it doesn't matter who you are using for email hosting, a state actor will get in. (Btw, proton etc are all pointless unless you only ever plan to email fellow proton users) So then we are left with privacy from commercial 3rd parties. And I trust fastmail to offer me that, given that their customers pay for the service, I don't think it is worth it for them to also sell my data.

by uhtred 5y ago

dankwizard 5y ago

I'd recommend against Australian based - There are laws that state companies must be able to decrypt encrypted user data if required, and for a backdoor to be in place if they require access. A "Data Disruption Warrant" allows them to add, copy, delete or modify your data. "Account Takeover Warrant" will remove your access to an account but still allow them full access

uhtred 5y ago
If I was going to send truly sensitive information I wouldn't use email anyway, or I would but with gpg encryption, so I'm not too worried about the fact that fastmail might allow some government agency access. What fastmail will offer is privacy from 3rd parties such as advertisers and data brokers.
- dividedbyzero 5y ago
  There have been attempts by police where I live to exploit such setups as loopholes to request data from companies in foreign jurisdictions that they wouldn't be able to obtain from domestic ones, and since there is no "fruit of the poisonous tree" doctrine over here, such evidence has actually been admitted in court, or at the least used to enable parallel construction. Given that the Aussies are doubling down on their police state, I'd rather not expose myself to such shenanigans (and if my data ends up in some predictive policing data warehouse, I'd prefer if it was just one, not two). As for advertisement surveillance, I'd have to take Fastmail's word, whereas with a domestic provider, there's the GDPR that is a lot harder to evade for them than for some Australian company.

dividedbyzero 5y ago

> Fastmail are based in Australia Like sibling said, doesn't Australia have a pretty bad track record with respect to data protection (especially data owned by foreigners?) If ease of use were the #1 priority I'd stick with Google, I've never had a single issue in over a decade with them. > What makes you consider google to be privacy conscious? I probably didn't make that clear enough, but I don't consider them that, hence why I'm looking for something more privacy-conscious than Google (ideally not just a little more but I'm willing to make some compromises if that means I can keep using iOS Mail and the like)

uhtred 5y ago
I don't think I suggested ease of use was the number 1 priority? Who are you looking for privacy from? Unless you use gpg/pgp it doesn't matter who you are using for email hosting, a state actor will get in. (Btw, proton etc are all pointless unless you only ever plan to email fellow proton users) So then we are left with privacy from commercial 3rd parties. And I trust fastmail to offer me that, given that their customers pay for the service, I don't think it is worth it for them to also sell my data.