It's you, the consumer, that's losing out – it's your privacy that's at risk when #BigTech puts their profits first. That means higher prices, less choice, and no privacy.
💰 Fines paid by Proton in 2023: $0.
End-to-end encryption makes it impossible for us to access or collect your data with Proton Mail, Proton Calendar, Proton Drive, Proton VPN and Proton Pass.
@protonmail What is the purpose of getting rid of BigTech services when ProtonMail itself forces you to use the Google services in order to receive ANY notifications?
On the one hand, you spit on BigTech, and on the other hand, you make life difficult for users who ACTUALLY care about privacy (Anyone who doesn't have GSF installed on their Android phone knows what I'm talking about....)
@aes256@protonmail Sadly there is no proper open-source implementation for push notifications yet that would be simple to implement. It would have to be integrated in Android ROMs, using a common standard shared by apps (or at least an alternative drop-in replacement for microG). Otherwise it's pointless. 😐
@Natanox@protonmail@aes256 it's very useable yeah, if the app implements it then it just works™ generally, the issue now is that not many apps have it implemented
Proton inventing their own stand-alone notification service for only their own services will be a scalability challenge with 100+ million users. And likewise the complaints of Proton apps suddenly draining a lot more battery.
@dazo@aes256 Thanks for the feedback, it has been passed along to the team. For now, push notifications are end-to-end encrypted and we provde the APKs here: https://protonapps.com/
@protonmail
I see it this way: the base modifier on fines should rise (automatically, codified) for each company by the amount how fast they made back the fines, and the maximum cap to match the top earner.
F.e.:
Google's base modifier should go up 312.86 times (365×24/(24+4)).
Maximum cap: Amazon made 55.85/h. So the cap should from this year be 489.246×10³ billion (yep, almost 500 trillion US unfunny-money).
P.S. Do check my math, just in case.
CC: Europarlament
@protonmail It's a problem that media reports these fines in absolute numbers. They sound so big, they risk getting people to sympathize with the tech companies and turn against the governments, much like that famous McDonald's coffee incident. They should report them as percentages of income or, as you, as time.
@protonmail
Reminder that Protonmail is under Swiss jurisdiction and foreign governments can request metadata such as who you sent emails to, IP addresses, and date and time, as the French did for ecological activists, and got it.
@davep Let us also clarify that all communication services are legislated to a degree in every country and that Swiss legislation is superior to most when it comes to privacy. Additionally, Proton contests every legal request we can, and we have also strengthened the protection of our users' privacy through a court victory against the Swiss government: https://proton.me/blog/court-strengthens-email-privacy
Corporate fines should always be proportional to gross receipts. That’s the only way to make them truly deterrent.
Take all the ‘law and order’ measures that conservatives promote for actual people and apply the to corporations: punitive fines and penalties that leave the payor destitute, the death penalty… I’m good with all of it for fictional ‘persons’.
@protonmail i have grand respect for protonmail. But this is populism.
Facebook has now inserted a paid option because of the lawsuit in Norway, that pushed forward the effect of EU law.
This post hinges on the belief that the stuff that the laws are ment towards are so valuable that the big tech will rather break the laws to make an additional profit. This is simply not true.
I think Proton is so good that it doesn't need to grasp so low.
@protonmail Seems like the problem is that these fines aren't actually big. Just because $1 billion seems like a lot in comparison to a personal budget, doesn't mean it's a big fine for the likes of GAFAM. $1 billion should be on the low side when it comes to fines for them, but unfortunately we see it as big.
@protonmail Maybe time to start fining them on the basis of how quickly they can pay it off? e.g. they get fined, say, a years profits based on the last years figures, regardless of what that sum is. That might make them pause?
@protonmail Agreed. I think we need to stop trying to financially punish these big tech companies. They have lawyers that are smarter, faster, and better than elected officials and will find ways around regulation each and every time.
The regulations only hurt the little guy that just happened to be in the line of fire.
Instead, I think we should work to foster innovative companies that are finding unique solutions to combat big tech's invasive practices.