this post was submitted on 09 Jun 2026
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Privacy
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I loved proton years ago... even did a paid account for a while. This isn't their first wtf moment and won't be their last. The problem for me, its that I expect more carefulness and thoughtfulness from a company that promotes encryption and privacy.
Showing me how easily you make mistakes is a quick way for me to question how well you're safeguarding the platform.
I've moved away. Will take some time for them to earn back the trust, but honestly... I don't see a huge need for them anymore. I simply don't consider email secure. If you want real secure communication (that you can host on a server yourself) Matrix and XMPP are a much better choice.
Anyway... the response is nice. Just doesn't fix anything.
I mean I'm sure they pay more attention to safeguarding data than some random french YouTube channel, that's why they didn't think too much about the sponsorship.
They care about privacy and security, not marketing. They probably hate that they have to do marketing in the first place. It's honestly relatable.
their marketing practices have been questionable for years, though. the promotional emails (everyone subscribed by default) and even the pricing pages are filled with dark patterns. by the charity fundraisers they do, these dark patterns don't seem to be necessary for their sustainability.
Imo almost all of marketing can be considered dark patterns. And when your competition uses dark patterns, if you don't use it you simply don't gain users.
I'm reminded of a Veritasium video on clickbait (too lazy to link it right now but should be easy to find). They talk about how there's a balance between marketing (and furthermore, manipulative marketing) and reach. If you believe the user will benefit from your service, then maybe it's worth a bit of manipulative marketing, just to get them to enter the door. It's a tricky balance.