There's also the PBC (Public Benefit Corporation), which in addition to profit / shareholder value explicitly defines positive impact on society as a goal, and exists since 2010 in some states, while in others only since 2022 [1]. But as far as I understand there are no legal requirements or audits that ensure those goals are followed.
Kagi (the search engine, popular in the HN community and I'm a happy customer myself) is one example of a PBC [2].
My experience interacting with Novo Nordisk is that, in their case, this model has led to massive inefficiencies.
The non-profit aspect has led to lots of internal politics and rigged hires. They are much more inefficient than a classical pharma.
Smells like tax evasion, but what do i know. Isn't IKEAs founder one of the richest people in Swiss?
They are now an "AI company" and Firefox isn't a concern anymore.
I expect Mozilla to die within the next few years and the web to become Chromium only, finally solving my chronic online-ness.
> Among other members of the Foundation's board is Sir Tim Berners-Lee, inventor of HTML, HTTP, and almost everything else about the web.
Well that's good news!
(Whether it's slamming a rogue exec up against a pillar in a parking garage whilst cursing corrective instructions, or deploying his vast power to destroy his enemies from a distance, or whatever skills and resolve are required.)
DON LAFONTAINE: In a world...
Where the Internet was betrayed...
One man...
Is called to serve again.
And he's dispensing his own brand of standard.Find a different anti-spam measure
More discussion on official post: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40704191
From their own transparency page:
Number of legal orders: 6,378
Contested orders: 407
Orders complied with: 5,971
They did this to expose protestors and people who upset the powers that be, rarely real criminals.
They could choose to operate in a country that respects rights and design their tech so that there's nothing valuable to hand over. This is what Mullvad did.
*Edit: HN has been overwhelmed with poor quality users and bots growing in the last few years. Same as reddit there are paid services used to manipulate voting. HN needs to migrate away from this in order for real discussions to return.
I believe it was stated on the page you copied those stats from https://proton.me/legal/transparency
> As stated in our Privacy Policy, all emails, files and invites are encrypted and we have no means to decrypt them.
They're all encrypted except when you pay more for dedicated smtp.
They're all encrypted except when they give up logs they promised they didn't have.
And so on.
Proton does not claim no logs and has never claimed no logs. We do not retain logs by default, but our privacy policy has always been clear that we are legally obligated to follow Swiss court orders, which can ask for IP logging on specific accounts.
I am not an activist so I don’t need to jump through such loopholes.
I don’t despise proton as much as I despise most of Silicon Vally though. I just hope they fight every single court order, because there will be lots of good people being targeted. However, I reckon that is wishful thinking.
They have every means to decrypt, they control both the client software, server, and data. You would never know if they logged your key, and they can be compelled to by flimsy order.
It seems like the next time you log in they would be able to capture your password and decrypt your emails.
Your decrypted key isn't sent off your local computer. So it's not a case of waiting for you to log in and swipe your key. They never get the key.
In the past you could have a separate login password and decryption password. You still can in the advanced settings if you want.
Don’t get me wrong, I have multiple ‘Visionary Accounts’ but I have just no expectation of them protecting my data completely.
How do they get peoples passwords / keys? Easy. They just wait for you to log in and they swipe it then. It’s targeted.
They are a perfect example of why you cannot really trust any company selling ‘privacy’, like Apple, Mozilla and whoever else fakes it. Even TOR to a degree is a pile of pish because all the relays can be hosted on mostly American VPS companies… so although the rest of the world would struggle detecting who people are, five eyes are in an excellent position to be able to unmask. It’s intended for the Five Eyes spies to hide among - they need the randomers on there or it’s a useless tool for their global spies to use - I don’t think enough people actually realise that.
Under Swiss law, Proton cannot be compelled to do this. Nor is this "easy" to execute if you are using the open source mobile or desktop apps.
But, do you have a method which results in the data being accessible to anyone other than the account owner?
I don’t know exactly what you provide. Or how you do it. But it does feel secretive, and that in itself makes people think the worst.
But I do know how NDA’s work, so that might be a part of it.
Here’s their recovery process: https://proton.me/support/set-account-recovery-methods
I don’t see there customer support call as a recovery method. I‘d expect that for paid accounts you could theoretically verify your identity to CS via payment, but in that case you lose the data anyway.
Source? How exactly do you know what cases of people the legal orders were about?
As well, emails and files are encrypted. And their VPN is a no-log VPN.
Lastly, they can comply with an order and just give them nothing, because they don't have anything they can give. No files (E2EE), no VPN network info (No-logging), no emails (E2EE), etc. That's still, legally, an order they complied with.
1. Government entity (usually the US or EU country) pressures the host country's government
2. Host country's government makes a legal request to the company for info on this user.
3. Company adds logging for that specific user.
4. Logging is provided to all those interested.
5. Host country prosecutes (potentially extradites).
There's a public accounting of this happening for Proton and Mullvad too iirc.
It may be true, it may not be, but there needs to be more information or facts before we get to the original comments statement that Proton gives data to expose protestors to protect "the powers that be".
> HN has been overwhelmed with poor quality users and bots growing in the last few years. Same as reddit there are paid services used to manipulate voting. HN needs to migrate away from this in order for real discussions to return.
is absurd. Is it really the only way you can explain why you're downvoted? Could it not be because you've made several unsubstantiated claims?