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Comment by infomaniak | Hacker News Reader

With 20 GB of storage, this Swiss-made messaging system allows you to repatriate and store the emails of a lifetime. Access to kDrive with 3 GB of storage is also included for photos and online collaboration on Word, Excel and PowerPoint documents.

Currently restricted to Swiss citizens, this offer will soon be extended to the whole of Europe.

For further details: https://news.infomaniak.com/en/free-swiss-email-address/

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There is no such thing as a free lunch. How does this company intend to monetize this product? Email (and photos) are things people highly depend on.

This is in that link “Our business model is about safeguarding data, not selling it. We’re developing our own ecosystem so we never have to compromise on our values. No personal data is analysed or resold to third parties. Our free services such as SwissTransfer, kMeet and ik.me are financed by our paid products and contribute to extending Infomaniak’s reach.” Marc Oehler, COO at Infomaniak"

So, selling your email content and personal data when he sells his company in 5 years time?

Its apparently a 20 year old company, which is pretty old by internet standards.

Exactly. I don't know what are everyone talking about. It's one of the biggest, if not the biggest, hosting provider here in Europe. It's older than Google.

old != not shady.

My parent comment was talking about "him" selling the company in 5 years. Your argument does not work against that specific point.

Also old != will last forever

Citizens (like you write here), or residents (like what it says on the website)? 25% of Swiss residents are not citizens (i.e. they have a permit to live in the country but hold a foreign passport), so that's an important distinction.

Right now, it means "person who has a Swiss phone number" since that's the only they seem to check (I just signed up).

Phone numbers are available to all residents.

Well, any tourist can show their passport and get a prepaid SIM card in Switzerland...

How are you planning to balance privacy, citizenship / real name usage requirement and obvious law enforcement requirements ?

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