this post was submitted on 08 Jun 2026
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Privacy

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Privacy has become a very important issue in modern society, with companies and governments constantly abusing their power, more and more people are waking up to the importance of digital privacy.

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[–] edel@lemmy.ml 30 points 3 weeks ago* (last edited 3 weeks ago) (4 children)

Three things on Proton:

  1. Proton mail has been in a rampage with sponsor YouTube channels and, in my opinion, that is a mistake. I would have kept it an organic growth, but that is me... a nobody, and Proton has become far more successful than no other email provider in the privacy world.

  2. Considering even that, Proton is not vetting who is sponsoring. This is a fiasco. For instance they try to sponsor the channel "The hated one" that never takes any sponsors and even constantly criticizes channels that does it. That is a mayor blunder for Proton, there is no scrutiny at all with their marketing deployment. By the way, we learned that that youtubers get a juicy amount by Proton in these sponsorships (I think was $70 per subscription).

  3. Proton, for years, has been aiming for the masses, not the most serious in privacy (for instance, androidś Proton email still uses Google push services). That is not bad per se, I still recommend Proton to many. But those with a more ideological approach to privacy or those requiring top notch on it, should be aiming for other service providers.

[–] hiawatha98@lemmy.world 5 points 3 weeks ago

I think this is a very balanced opinion. I do like the services they offer, but they seem to step in it far too often and people are quick to swarm when they do. Here's hoping that this incident will cause some serious reflection within the company to reevaluate their approach. Maybe going back to the organic growth or self-promoting in key areas.

[–] Solrac@lemmy.world 2 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

Honeypot behavior, don't you think? We are suppose to be trusting them, but this is what they do?

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[–] PsychoWiz@lemmy.world 2 points 2 weeks ago

For push notifications I don't think you have practical alternatives to FCM and APNs.

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[–] SoftBun@lemmy.ml 20 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

They also sponsor a far-right influencer in Brazil.

This guy is literally a grandson of a dictator of the military dictatorship. He was also one of the articulators of the 2023 coup attempt, pressing the military to join

very cool proton

[–] Onyx376@lemmy.ml 11 points 2 weeks ago

I'm from Brazil and I hadn't seen this yet. It's disgusting! Dude, Proton never again! They are financing the most rotten things in Brazil! Very sad and revolting!

[–] Rindogang@lemmy.ml 11 points 3 weeks ago* (last edited 3 weeks ago) (5 children)

I was afraid Proton would eventually go down the far right route... and it seems like my fears came true

[–] eldavi@lemmy.ml 15 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

their CEO publicly announced support for trump; anyone saying otherwise about proton's proclivities is coping too hard -- especially the ones in this community.

[–] silentjohn@lemmy.ml 4 points 3 weeks ago (2 children)

you can say this about literally every tech company these days.

[–] Core_of_Arden@lemmy.ml 6 points 2 weeks ago (9 children)

Which is why we support Open Source like Firefox, Thunderbird, GIMP, NextCloud, LibreOffice and a whole lot more. :-)

[–] PearOfJudes@lemmy.ml 3 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)
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[–] eldavi@lemmy.ml 5 points 3 weeks ago

very true; capitalists will always capital.

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[–] DaGammla@lemmy.ml 9 points 3 weeks ago (2 children)

Using Proton always seemed like a bad idea. People come to Proton in order to deGoogle or de-big-tech but then lock themselves into their ecosystem, defeating the entire purpose.
Not mention how scummy their PR-Team, their CEO and their Business Practices are.
So many Proton sponsered content creators spread lies about how Proton Mail is supposedly E2E encrypted or how Proton VPN is supposedly a privacy and security tool.
Time and time again they have lied about how much data they have and how much they have disclosed to investigating agencies.

The only way I could ever undestand someone using Proton Mail would be to use their service but behind your own domain, such that migrating away stays easy.

[–] EncryptKeeper@lemmy.world 3 points 3 weeks ago* (last edited 3 weeks ago)

Has there been some revelation that ProtonMail isn’t E2EE?

Or that their VPN isn't a privacy tool?

Every so often I’ll see these claims made by random people on the internet but there’s never any truth behind them. It’s usually just some non-technical person who doesn’t really understand the first thing about technology.

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[–] Dirk@lemmy.ml 6 points 3 weeks ago (4 children)

Such companies "sponsor" everyone. It's cheaper than normal advertisements.

[–] alastel@lemmy.ml 9 points 3 weeks ago (2 children)

You've got some companies advertising with streamers/youtubers that do some checks on who they advertise with. They use specialised communication agencies, it's their job.

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[–] umbrella@lemmy.ml 4 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

ceo praised trump then deleted the tweet. it should have been the first warning sign he is a fascist.

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[–] procapra@lemmy.ml 3 points 2 weeks ago

The corporation sponsors the pro capitalist ideologue? I'm shocked.

[–] AlteredEgo@lemmy.ml 3 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

Is there an article about this?

[–] marcie@lemmy.ml 5 points 3 weeks ago* (last edited 3 weeks ago) (2 children)
[–] AlteredEgo@lemmy.ml 3 points 2 weeks ago

Thanks, yeah seems it was a mistake. The CEO / founder is I believe a libertarian, but at least he believes in something, like privacy.

[–] airikr@lemmy.ml 2 points 2 weeks ago (2 children)

And for us who refuses to open links to Big Tech, even reddit. Is there any other trusted sources for this?

[–] marcie@lemmy.ml 3 points 2 weeks ago

You could check redlib and put the links in it

[–] PearOfJudes@lemmy.ml 1 points 2 weeks ago

Actual larper.

[–] diaphragmwp@discuss.tchncs.de 3 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago) (1 children)

Ironically I am happier with cock.li than proton

(context: owned by 4chan user (with a grain of salt(?)) but it's best i've found :/ )

[–] altphoto@lemmy.today 2 points 2 weeks ago (6 children)

All of us could use some cock.li

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[–] hiawatha98@lemmy.world 3 points 3 weeks ago (2 children)
[–] Armand1@lemmy.world 9 points 3 weeks ago* (last edited 3 weeks ago) (1 children)

To avoid you all a trip to reddit:

You're right to raise this, and we want to address it directly and provide you important context on how this happened.

Vincent Lapierre's channel should never have been part of our affiliate and sponsorship program, because we intentionally avoid association with channels whose content could distract from our message and divide our community.

Proton operates globally, and while our services are available to everyone regardless of political views and our mission is consistent everywhere, our knowledge of every local media landscape is not. In this case, our team didn't have enough context about the French space to make a well-informed decision, and that's on us.

 We also want to be straight about what a placement like this is and isn't. An affiliate or sponsorship arrangement is a transactional placement for awareness, not an endorsement of a creator's views. In the case of Vincent Lapierre, this was a single video sponsorship, not a partnership.

But that distinction doesn't excuse what happened here. The responsibility to vet who we put our name next to is ours, and we didn't meet it this time. We're now reviewing our vetting process and our guidelines for our marketing agencies to ensure this doesn't happen again.

If you see something like this again, tell us. We rely on your feedback and vigilance.

[–] birdwing@lemmy.blahaj.zone 1 points 6 days ago

But have they cancelled the channel from being affilates and sponsored? I don't see them directly stating that.

[–] hirihit640@sh.itjust.works 3 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago)

why is this comment so buried. An official response should be the top comment, and as of writing this only has 2 upvotes

[–] mrddu3at2@lemmy.world 3 points 2 weeks ago

Really, that’s how they use our subscription money… I’m not renewing.

[–] Core_of_Arden@lemmy.ml 2 points 2 weeks ago

Thanks for the heads up. Haven't really used Proton, but I have a few accounts in case of... But now they will be deleted.

[–] PearOfJudes@lemmy.ml 2 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

Well, I am concerned. I paid $100+ on a proton bundle subscription during the Black Friday sale, it came with half a terabyte cloud storage, a fast and Private vpn, and a proton pass which integrates well with the email provider. It was cheap, and private, and it all works well together.

Proton is owned 60 something percent by the proton non profit organisation, which makes regular donations to other private project's like GrapheneOS. It’s worked well for me. But this is really concerning considering I oppose fascism, and broadly want to support a leftist, anti-capitalist movement.

This also sucks because the far right want their internet privacy as much as the anti capitalist left. Does this mean proton is an evil company, that even if it has good, private technology, should be boycotted? When frankly, if the left boycotted, and didn’t participate in any capitalist organisation, we would likely starve to death.

Could this just be a marketing issue? Ffs the consumer should not be blamed for the faults of a company, and using their product.

[–] pineapplelover@lemmy.dbzer0.com 4 points 2 weeks ago

People in this thread love to dunk on proton but they don't have time to heavily investigate all the sponsorships and affiliate links, they're too busy actually keeping the service up and secure.

Here's proton's response

https://lemmy.dbzer0.com/comment/26484589

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