6 ms·

> our primary servers are located in the US Why would you do that, especially when you're not even a US company?

robn_fastmail 13y ago
Because most of our customers are in the US. If your goal is to provide the fastest service around, it helps to put your servers near your users.
- skrause 13y ago
  But maybe most of your users are from the US because the servers are there? I'm from Europe and was a FastMail customer once, but I switched away because I didn't trust the US-based servers (and that was even before the NSA scandal).
- brongondwana 13y ago
  Also because Australian bandwidth is hella-expensive, power isn't great either. Why New York rather than West Coast - that's a trickier one. I'd certainly appreciate the slightly faster pingtimes, but it would be slower for Europe. I think a major consideration is that we found a really good datacentre with NYI, and we're sticking with them because they're incredibly reliable. Reliability matters in this business.
- frank_boyd 13y ago
  You're implying that you would make less money by trading in your US location for more security. That means that you believe not enough users care enough about their privacy to accept that (really light) trade-off.
  - brongondwana 13y ago
    It might also mean that many of our users believe in the same tradeoff that we do - that we're not overreacting to one low probability/high visibility risk by throwing out the incredibly good reliability we've had for years to shut everything down, ship it to a location with unknown reliability and spin it all back up again - complete with new IP addresses and all the headache that would cause tons of customers who have hard coded things on their own domains (annoying but true - recycling IPs is hard) There are tons of downsides to shutting down everything that's working well in a knee-jerk reaction to one possible risk - never mind that the government of whatever country we choose could very well cooperate with the same agencies we're running from - or they could just corrupt an employee of the datacentre we're in - or... So maybe if you're going to put words into our mouth you could put ones about how much we care about our users and our reliability that we don't jump on unproven setups just because of a single (unchanged, just more public) risk.
    - sillysaurus2 13y ago
      You're not representing your company very well. If you're going to be mean, you'd better be right. But in the scenario you describe, the solution is to move incrementally, one server at a time, not "shut everything down, ship it, then reboot everything simultaneously." FYI you have about 1.5 hours to edit your post. You may want to do that, because otherwise it will probably scare off most informed potential customers who read it.
      - Zancarius 13y ago
        > You're not representing your company very well. > FYI you have about 1.5 hours to edit your post. You may want to do that, because otherwise it will probably scare off most informed potential customers who read it. (The above post was, curiously, edited very slightly before I was able to reply.) It's possible brongondwana is taking some of the discussion here personally, but most people invested emotionally in their company are going to feel some need to defend their decisions against criticism they see as invalid or misplaced. I can't help but feel that some of your post is also somewhat emotionally-charged. I apologize if I'm misreading it. Regardless, to play devil's advocate, both of the FastMail employees have a point (I also fail to see how they're being "mean;" maybe it's a cultural difference?). While they may not be a huge company with a great deal of leverage with the right government officials, I think such criticism levied against them is indeed kneejerk and perhaps a touch myopic. It's ignoring the greater story at large, which is the souring of US policy abroad, particularly among our allies. As an example, an enterprising Australian politician who wanted to make a name for his or her self could certainly take any such incidents against FastMail and use them as political leverage. I can only imagine just how incendiary such headlines might become: US Seizes Australian Servers in NSA/FBI/Scary-three-letter-name US Agency Sting Operation. That'd go over real well, especially among Commonwealth nations. I would submit to you (and others) that the best means of debating this would be to research case law and find examples where US courts upheld government actions against foreign assets held or based in the US. IANAL, but I can't help myself from thinking that such a foundation would be much better than accusing one side in particular of being "mean."
        13y ago
- sandstrom 13y ago
  What about European users? That market should be roughly equal in size. As others have noted, I would consider Fastmail if servers were located in a country with greater respect for privacy, judicial oversight and rule of law.
- deleted 13y ago
  [deleted]

Because most of our customers are in the US. If your goal is to provide the fastest service around, it helps to put your servers near your users.

skrause 13y ago
But maybe most of your users are from the US because the servers are there? I'm from Europe and was a FastMail customer once, but I switched away because I didn't trust the US-based servers (and that was even before the NSA scandal).
brongondwana 13y ago
Also because Australian bandwidth is hella-expensive, power isn't great either. Why New York rather than West Coast - that's a trickier one. I'd certainly appreciate the slightly faster pingtimes, but it would be slower for Europe. I think a major consideration is that we found a really good datacentre with NYI, and we're sticking with them because they're incredibly reliable. Reliability matters in this business.
frank_boyd 13y ago
You're implying that you would make less money by trading in your US location for more security. That means that you believe not enough users care enough about their privacy to accept that (really light) trade-off.
- brongondwana 13y ago
  It might also mean that many of our users believe in the same tradeoff that we do - that we're not overreacting to one low probability/high visibility risk by throwing out the incredibly good reliability we've had for years to shut everything down, ship it to a location with unknown reliability and spin it all back up again - complete with new IP addresses and all the headache that would cause tons of customers who have hard coded things on their own domains (annoying but true - recycling IPs is hard) There are tons of downsides to shutting down everything that's working well in a knee-jerk reaction to one possible risk - never mind that the government of whatever country we choose could very well cooperate with the same agencies we're running from - or they could just corrupt an employee of the datacentre we're in - or... So maybe if you're going to put words into our mouth you could put ones about how much we care about our users and our reliability that we don't jump on unproven setups just because of a single (unchanged, just more public) risk.
  - sillysaurus2 13y ago
    You're not representing your company very well. If you're going to be mean, you'd better be right. But in the scenario you describe, the solution is to move incrementally, one server at a time, not "shut everything down, ship it, then reboot everything simultaneously." FYI you have about 1.5 hours to edit your post. You may want to do that, because otherwise it will probably scare off most informed potential customers who read it.
    - Zancarius 13y ago
      > You're not representing your company very well. > FYI you have about 1.5 hours to edit your post. You may want to do that, because otherwise it will probably scare off most informed potential customers who read it. (The above post was, curiously, edited very slightly before I was able to reply.) It's possible brongondwana is taking some of the discussion here personally, but most people invested emotionally in their company are going to feel some need to defend their decisions against criticism they see as invalid or misplaced. I can't help but feel that some of your post is also somewhat emotionally-charged. I apologize if I'm misreading it. Regardless, to play devil's advocate, both of the FastMail employees have a point (I also fail to see how they're being "mean;" maybe it's a cultural difference?). While they may not be a huge company with a great deal of leverage with the right government officials, I think such criticism levied against them is indeed kneejerk and perhaps a touch myopic. It's ignoring the greater story at large, which is the souring of US policy abroad, particularly among our allies. As an example, an enterprising Australian politician who wanted to make a name for his or her self could certainly take any such incidents against FastMail and use them as political leverage. I can only imagine just how incendiary such headlines might become: US Seizes Australian Servers in NSA/FBI/Scary-three-letter-name US Agency Sting Operation. That'd go over real well, especially among Commonwealth nations. I would submit to you (and others) that the best means of debating this would be to research case law and find examples where US courts upheld government actions against foreign assets held or based in the US. IANAL, but I can't help myself from thinking that such a foundation would be much better than accusing one side in particular of being "mean."
      - 13y ago
sandstrom 13y ago
What about European users? That market should be roughly equal in size. As others have noted, I would consider Fastmail if servers were located in a country with greater respect for privacy, judicial oversight and rule of law.
deleted 13y ago
[deleted]