this post was submitted on 20 May 2026
1080 points (99.1% liked)
Technology
84830 readers
4113 users here now
This is a most excellent place for technology news and articles.
Our Rules
- Follow the lemmy.world rules.
- Only tech related news or articles.
- Be excellent to each other!
- Mod approved content bots can post up to 10 articles per day.
- Threads asking for personal tech support may be deleted.
- Politics threads may be removed.
- No memes allowed as posts, OK to post as comments.
- Only approved bots from the list below, this includes using AI responses and summaries. To ask if your bot can be added please contact a mod.
- Check for duplicates before posting, duplicates may be removed
- Accounts 7 days and younger will have their posts automatically removed.
Approved Bots
founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
Proton has a long history of capitulation.
And they have a history of making promises they don't keep.
In fact, it's so bad that Proton defender @Wildmimic@anarchist.nexus wrote a warning about how their statement here is basically not to be trusted.
You think anyone is going to jail for you and your 10 bucks a month or whatever the subsxription cost is.
Direct your ire towards Proton and its false promises, please.
if 3 lines is a long comment for you, you should read more. For the others:
Thank you for sounding the alarm about the untrustworthiness of this company. Keep on keeping on, my anarchist friend.
name a VPN company that obstructed a federal court order
Mullvad
source? I have heard good things about Mullvad but I'm pretty sure they would not break laws
https://mullvad.net/en/help/how-we-handle-government-requests-user-data
https://mullvad.net/en/help/no-logging-data-policy
https://mullvad.net/en/blog/mullvad-vpn-was-subject-to-a-search-warrant-customer-data-not-compromised
sounds like they complied with the court orders? Proton also doesn't log IPs, unless ordered by court. I'm willing to bet that if a court ordered Mullvad to start logging all traffic, they would comply, at least until they were able to move jurisdictions or something
Watch the Proton evangelist move the goalposts they set
from the start I asked for a company that obstructed court order. Show me where I moved goalposts
I'm holding a company to account for promising this.
So you thought this meant they would break the law? Nobody else expects that. There are more reasonable ways to interpret the messaging
Don't be silly. You know Proton could do a lot to help people's privacy before breaking the law.
holy shit someone on lemmy made a long comment, you say
What long history of capitulation?
@Photonic@lemmy.world, if you already knew Proton had a history of capitulation, why did you ask? Especially when the next thing you did was pretend it didn't matter.
Mate, I sense a lot of anger in you. Try to calm down a bit. I’m not the enemy here. I want privacy just as much as you do.
Your definition of capitulation is a bit (and by a bit, I mean very much) exaggerated.
"Mate," you got an answer to your question, but opted to brush it off in several ways. If you did care, take it up with Proton and stop being disingenuous here.
Disingenuous? The only disingenuous thing is calling someone else disingenuous just because they have a different opinion. Don’t ever call me disingenuous, because that’s not what I am.
Your definition of capitulation is absurd and the way you’re going into this discussion is nothing more than Trump-like and scummy. Kindly fuck off with your pedantic and paediatric behaviour and leave the grown-ups be.
Photonic, you are the poster child for disingenuous behavior. Upon being shown proof that Proton misleads its customers, your only retort was that they shouldn't have to.
Really, what part of my comment is disingenuous?
You don’t hold the truth. You just have an opinion and a very dumb and short-sighted one at that. And as you know, opinions are like assholes. That doesn’t mean you have to start acting like an asshole to defend your shitty opinion.
Your mind is just too simplistic to comprehend a simple concept. That is entirely on you and doesn’t make me disingenuous, no matter how hard you try. You just learned a new word and thought that made you sound smart… it didn’t.
Any service out there that would not comply with these orders, is a service that could not legally operate in these countries.
Direct your ire to Proton's false advertising on their homepage!
Nowhere in that paragraph says that they will ignore the law.
mabeledo, the links prove they don't bother practicing what they preach. They don't even try, until public pressure gets too hot. You don't need to be a corporate shill.
What a childish take.
Proton cannot operate outside of the law. Swiss laws may be privacy friendly, but that does not imply that court orders can be ignored.
But if you think so, then please name a single entity that after not complying with a court order, was still allowed to continue operations or was not fined.
You know that it's possible to push back against surveillance without committing crimes.
Stop being so disingenuous with the false dichotomies.
I think I have asked a very clear cut question. Will patiently wait for your answer.
Well, I know there are some cases. But they are still bound by Swiss law, or soon they will not have a company anymore.
It’s not perfect on privacy, but I wouldn’t call it “capitulation” either.
Proton's homepage has a very different take on Swiss law.
And a very different public message about whether they would capitulate vs defending your freedom.
Well that’s actually what I said, isn’t it? Swiss law, which they have to abide by. Some of the strongest in the world, but not airtight for people who commit crimes.
The laws protect the company and the users privacy to a certain extent, but that also means Proton have the responsibility to uphold that law, or the law will be meaningless.
Getting into trouble by repeatedly purposely breaking the law is probably the easiest way for a company to get disbanded. No other companies will work with you, your server contracts will not be extended and you won’t get anything done.
And neutral is also probably a lawful type of neutral, judging from the many times they mention the law :)
It's the exact opposite. Proton says Swiss law backs you. You say that Swiss law binds them to be against you.
If Proton said what you said, they wouldn't be guilty of false advertising.
I never said that.
Being backed by the law also means working within the confinements of the law.
They’re not falsely advertising if they don’t specifically mention they are not going to break the law.
I don’t understand why this is such a difficult concept for you.
They don't say that, now do they?
Why would they have to?
Do they really have to specify when they cite the law that that the law works for them exactly like it does for everyone else?
They never say they are above the law or will break the law either. Now that would be false advertising.
Proton is a privacy service. If the best thing you can say about its deception is that they aren't violating the law, you have a very low bar.
Where did I mention it is the best thing about them?
No really. Please quote me.
And if you can’t, you may have found the actual straw man argument in this discussion. Good luck!
Their advertising is already false advertising, Photonic. Stop making up strawman scenarios to defend the dishonest corporation.
What part of my argument is a straw man to you?
Is the straw man in the room with us right now?