Interview with Andy Yen, CEO of Proton VPN
compiler.news
compiler.news
Some context on reddit: https://old.reddit.com/r/ProtonMail/comments/1i2nz9v/on_poli...
A subset were also upset with the nature of the endorsement.
And then you could also discuss whether a CEO of a company has to consider what they say, regardless if they're using an official account or not. This is more of a gray area, and has people divided.
I'm personally of the opinion that, as a CEO, you're always representing your company when speaking to the public to some extent.
Andy, or someone else, posted what can be read as an endorsement[1].
> Until corporate Dems are thrown out, the reality is that Republicans remain more likely to tackle Big Tech abuses.
Putting aside that this was a divisive statement, the problem emerged when this was posted by the official company account.
For the duration of time that this was the official response, it's not unreasonable for the public to assume that Andy, or someone else, endorsed a political party using the official company account.
This is the core of what caused the incident to escalate.
It was later retracted, and followed up with a statement[2] on the incident.
[2]: https://www.reddit.com/r/ProtonMail/comments/1i2nz9v/on_poli...
By contrast, Democrats nominated her to be commissioner, officially it was Biden who did so but Elizabeth Warren, another Democrat, is the one who really pushed for it.
Words don't mean shit compared to action.
With your kind of reasoning its pretty obvious why America is currently driving itself off a cliff.
The statement maybe retracted but the message and statement and ideology remain. I cannot trust your organization based on your CEO.
The irony is the collection of big-tech that showed up for and financially supported Trump. This has a great profound outlook on real antitrust action towards those individuals and their organizations. Actions are more verbose than words but often ignored.
I've subscribed to Proton for several years, and I now deeply regret my decision. Regardless of any explanations about the removal of the statement or internal miscommunication, the damage is already done.
Of course not, but there's a difference between disagreeing with which is the best recipe for a cheesecake, the best castle in France, or whether or not it's acceptable to invade your neighbouring countries, if the government should be following the law/constitution, or basic biology, etc.
Some opinions one disagrees with are very worth to be up in arms. I'd even say that people have a civic duty of being up in arms against certain egregious topics. Say if a politician says that they want to allow for 9 year olds to be married to adults; or a rich guy backing multiple politicians all over the world Sieg Heils on national television; or a politician that just got elected is asking for money for favours from companies; or there's talk of "other"ing significant swathes of the population.
It reminds me of this sketch: https://youtu.be/zvgZtdmyKlI
Why is a privacy focused company from Switzerland kissing the ring? It’s a relevant question given the business they are in.
The promised retribution against people who voiced concerns (ie, the Jan 6 Committee) is just beginning.
On the other hand, a reputable VPN provider has everything to lose if word got out that they collect or sell information.
The privacy calculus is: 100% chance vs some small chance.
Really only valid for individual company adversaries though, depends on your threat model I guess.
Edit: it’s sad that I need a threat model
Is just collecting where people are going that lucrative to sell?
For example, they could pretty trivially assert with high confidence that a pregnant woman is in your home or that you’re shopping for a car. The tinfoil hat scenarios are interesting as well.
Also, in many places (Europa) there is collection and retention requirements for ISPs.
DE-CIX is a known SIGINT collection site.
Still interesting that it's #10 though.