[HN Gopher] Proton Spam and the AI Consent Problem
___________________________________________________________________
Proton Spam and the AI Consent Problem
Author : dbushell
Score : 454 points
Date : 2026-01-23 07:01 UTC (15 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (dbushell.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (dbushell.com)
| Terr_ wrote:
| > Has anyone else noticed that the AI industry can't take "no"
| for an answer? AI is being force-fed into every corner of tech.
| It's unfathomable to them that some of us aren't interested. The
| entire AI industry is built upon a common principle of non-
| consent.
|
| I can't help but see the spam as more circumstantial evidence of
| a bubble, where top-down "pump those numbers" priorities
| overrides regular process.
| hsbauauvhabzb wrote:
| Agree. The number of services i use where the apps continually
| add new marketing preferences which are defaulted to 'enabled'
| despite the fact that all other preferences are disabled is
| disgusting and clearly used by some companies to ignore
| people's actual preferences.
|
| LinkedIn is one of the worst offenders.
| duskdozer wrote:
| Have you noticed certain financial providers sending blatant
| marketing emails with no unsubscribe option and a comment
| along the lines of "these emails are not marketing"
| pil0u wrote:
| This is illegal practice in the EU
| duskdozer wrote:
| It's illegal in the US too as far as I'm aware. But you
| missed the part where they _clearly_ stated "it's not
| marketing" ;)
| nkrisc wrote:
| They go in the junk folder and then get marked and
| reported as spam.
| chrisjj wrote:
| Dangerous, since this invites genuine service emails to
| be junked.
| MiddleEndian wrote:
| I think that's fine. If 20% of the emails from some
| company (let's say Paypal) are spam, then all email
| providers (especially Gmail, the largest provider) should
| mark ALL of their emails as spam by default until they
| stop spending spam. If they want to keep spamming, they
| can at least humiliate themselves by telling people to
| check their spam folders for their emails.
| chrisjj wrote:
| It proved not fine for me on an occasion of missing a
| service email and losing an account as a result.
| MiddleEndian wrote:
| I would say the base problem is that said organization
| sent you spam and then disconnected you, rather than the
| spam filter.
| chrisjj wrote:
| The disconnection was the fault only of the spam filter
| hiding the service mail.
| Terr_ wrote:
| The corporate version of video-uploaders writing "no
| copyright infringement intended", except with less an an
| excuse for not knowing better.
| technothrasher wrote:
| "For Off-road Use Only"
| chrisjj wrote:
| Yet rife. My complaint to a major UK provide was rebuffed
| with the blatently false assertion that the email
| promoting a website refresh was an essential service
| email.
| hsbauauvhabzb wrote:
| Yes, but not anywhere near as annoying for me at least.
| genewitch wrote:
| control+alt+shift+Win+L
| junon wrote:
| This never stops annoying me that it exists.
| duskdozer wrote:
| What the fuck lmao
| dwedge wrote:
| Whenever I login to LinkedIn I get "emails aren't getting
| through to your main email address".
|
| 1. That's by design, because you spammed the shit out of it.
| 2. Given that all I do is send them to /dev/null, HOW DO YOU
| KNOW?
| mnw21cam wrote:
| They're checking to see whether any of the links they put
| in the emails are being fetched from their servers. It's
| stupid, but it works for most people.
|
| I had a similar situation with SMS messages that were being
| sent to me with links informing me of status updates. These
| texts were useful, and I would go over to my real computer
| to check the web site. Then after a few days the text
| messages said "It looks like these messages aren't getting
| through to you, so we'll stop sending them." Which is also
| stupid, but it works for most people that load the web site
| on their phone from the SMS link. God help you if you have
| a dumb-phone.
| Sharlin wrote:
| You don't need the recipient to actually click on any
| visible link. Tracking pixels are the oldest trick in the
| book.
| direwolf20 wrote:
| Probably tracking pixels in the emails
| dwedge wrote:
| So they'd miss it anyway, my mail client is firewalled to
| only be able to access the mailserver.
|
| I've been unsubscribed from a handful of newsletters
| because I don't read them. I replied to one and told them
| I did, even reached out on Twitter, but they still
| deleted me.
| hattmall wrote:
| The really strange thing is that so much of it doesn't work.
| Like I get that the SOTA models perform some tasks quite well
| and have some real value. But the AI being implemented in every
| corner creates a lot of really bad results. The Shopify code
| assistant will completely wreck your site and basically gets
| nothing correct. It will write 100 lines to change a color of a
| single DIV. The Amazon product Q&A will give you wrong
| information more frequently than not.
|
| In what mind frame is it logical or necessary to put these
| extremely poorly functioning products in to the wild?
| TeMPOraL wrote:
| It's a desperate attempt at staying relevant, even if most of
| those companies don't realize it yet. Because of its general-
| purpose nature, _AI subsumes products_. Most software
| products that try to "implement AI in every corner" would,
| from the user's POV, be more useful if they became _tools_
| for ChatGPT /Claude/Gemini.
|
| People's goals are rarely limited to just one software
| product, and products are basically defined as a bag of tools
| glued with UI, that work together but don't interoperate much
| with anything else. That boundary drawn around a bunch of
| software utilities, is given a name and a fancy logo, and
| sold or used to charge people rent. That's software products.
| But LLMs want to flip that around - they're _good_ at gluing
| things, so embedding one within a product is just a waste of
| model capabilities, and actually makes the product boundary
| more apparent and annoying.
|
| Or in short: consider Copilot in Microsoft Word, vs.
| "Generate Word Document" plugin/tool for a general LLM
| interface (whether Gemini webapp or Claude Code or something
| like TypingMind). The former is just an LLM locked in a box,
| barely able to output some text without refusing or claiming
| it can't do it. The latter is a general-purpose tool that can
| search the web for you, scrap some sites and run data
| analysis on results (writing its own code for this), talk
| results over with you, cross-reference with other sources,
| _and then_ generate you a pretty Word document with
| formatting and images.
|
| This is, btw., a real example. I used a Word document
| generator with TypingMind and GPT-4 via API, and it was more
| usable over a year ago than Copilot is even now. Partly
| because Copilot is just broken, but mostly because the LLM
| can do lots of things _other than_ writing text in Word.
|
| Point being, AI is eroding the notion of software product as
| something you sell/rent, which threatens just about the
| entire software industry :).
| PaulHoule wrote:
| AI is the first path _out_ of enshittification the industry
| has had in a while.
|
| See https://arstechnica.com/information-
| technology/2026/01/ebay-...
|
| It will be funny to see the rapid about face.
| Terr_ wrote:
| > AI is the first path _out_ of enshittification the
| industry has had in a while.
|
| Even reading the link, I don't see one gets to that
| conclusion.
|
| It doesn't change the power dynamic as much as it gives
| new ways for monopolies and rentiers to exploit it.
| Sharlin wrote:
| "It's difficult to get a man to understand something when his
| salary depends upon his not understanding it."
|
| In this case, the thing that's difficult to understand is "AI
| in everything is shit and nobody wants it."
| brauhaus wrote:
| This is not an AI problem, it's an "data privacy + lack of
| consequences problem". It happens everywhere. I mean, have you
| ever tried making an airline company to stop sending their shitty
| miles newsletters?
|
| Only way to stop is to start fining these companies.
| ozlikethewizard wrote:
| Not sure where you live, but inside the EU / UK this is rarely
| a problem because the companies do get fined. If youre having
| problems like this report them to your relevant authority. But
| as another commentor noted, AI bubble makes paying spam fines
| more worthwhile than bubble popping.
| brauhaus wrote:
| Only if the company is headquartered in EU/UK, right? Proton,
| for example, is headquartered in Switzerland. Even if it
| wanted, there would be no legal entity in EU to be fined.
| toby- wrote:
| My understanding is that a company's location is largely
| irrelevant; a company becomes subject to the GDPR when they
| handle EU citizens' data (or UK GDPR when it's UK
| citizens), and the EU/UK will still try to fine companies
| that aren't resident in the EU/UK - enforceability is a
| different question, although non-payment of fines opens the
| door to other remedies e.g. blocking access, seizing
| assets, etc.
| chrisjj wrote:
| > Not sure where you live, but inside the EU / UK this is
| rarely a problem because the companies do get fined.
|
| Here in UK is is a frequent problem and companies rarely get
| fined e.g. MS never.
| weedhopper wrote:
| True, microslop has a record of breaking GDPR and changing
| ToS without notifying users and looks like they are free to
| do so.
| cwillu wrote:
| Implementing this sort of "functionality" is always the
| department of a junior team, so that the obvious sorts of
| questions about defaults can be answered with "a junior dev was
| responsible for the implementation and messed up", even though
| the mess up was by design.
| RayVR wrote:
| I have often found proton's intrusive marketing campaigns
| annoying.
|
| I use them for email and that's all I want. Every time they
| market some new product to me, I get closer to moving to a new
| provider.
| chc4 wrote:
| I saw a Mastodon tweet a while ago, which went something like:
|
| Do tech companies understand consent?:
|
| - [ ] Yes
|
| - [ ] Ask me again in a few days
| littlecranky67 wrote:
| This. We must change laws that the above field is not
| considered as given consent. And while we are at it, we must
| change "silence is agreement" to "silence is disagreement".
| This applies to change of ToS, price increases etc. That means
| if I don't click a link with a button "I agree", the ToS change
| is not accepted - that means they have to cancel/delete my
| account.
| bayindirh wrote:
| Didn't FCC remove "1-click unsubscribe" requirement since it
| can "provide more choice and lower prices to all users across
| the board" (since the companies can rip off more users and
| create pseudo-lower prices)?
|
| EU has its GPDR and it has some teeth, but US is currently
| hopeless on that front, for now, from my vantage point.
|
| I'd love to be stand corrected though.
| SpicyLemonZest wrote:
| The FTC established a "click-to-cancel" rule, but (as with
| just _so_ many regulations in the US) it was blocked by an
| appeals court. Federal law says there 's a hoop they have
| to jump through for rules with an impact of more than $100
| million, and they didn't jump through the hoop because they
| didn't think the impact was that high.
| lelanthran wrote:
| > And while we are at it, we must change "silence is
| agreement" to "silence is disagreement".
|
| Maybe we should reframe their "silence is agreement" message
| as "silence is consent".
| 7bit wrote:
| Just move to Germany, we have all you asked for.
| usefulposter wrote:
| Hey, that sounds like Signal!
|
| https://github.com/signalapp/Signal-iOS/issues/4590
|
| >We're not going to remove the reminders.
|
| >If you don't want to provide that access, you still don't need
| to - you can simply tap remind me later once a month
|
| (See also: https://github.com/signalapp/Signal-iOS/issues/4373,
| https://github.com/signalapp/Signal-iOS/issues/5809, ...)
| stackghost wrote:
| Signal is an interesting case study in UX failure. I and a
| bunch of other tech forward people were on it in its heyday
| but after they removed SMS support and implemented shitty UX
| like that nag dialog: Neither I nor a single person I know
| uses it any more. Everyone is on Whatsapp or iMessage.
|
| It may be cryptographically superior, but does that matter at
| the end of the day if nobody uses it?
| TheChaplain wrote:
| > It may be cryptographically superior, but does that
| matter at the end of the day if nobody uses it?
|
| I've made a few attempts to convert people, but no-go.
| People stay on Telegram and WhatsApp because they have
| better UX and features.
|
| Signal refuses to see the value in good attractive UX.
| ale42 wrote:
| Cryptographical superiority aside, Signal doesn't collect
| personal data, unlike Whatsapp. For me that's the main
| reason to use it. The UX is good enough, although some
| points can for sure be improved.
| alex1138 wrote:
| Whatsapp should be a non starter. What Mark Zuckerberg
| did to Whatsapp should be required reading for anyone
| using the internet, and then decide if you still want to
| use Facebook (never mind, they build a shadow profile for
| you anyway)
|
| "It's time. Delete Facebook" isn't subtle https://www.for
| bes.com/sites/parmyolson/2018/09/26/exclusive...
| mystraline wrote:
| That needs spelled out.
|
| Delete: Facebook, Messenger, Instagram, WhatsApp, Meta,
| Threads, Manus.
|
| Most people think of Facebook and Messenger when they see
| "Delete Facebook". Thats also why the rest dont have Meta
| or FB in their name.
| nxtbl wrote:
| Sounds like they just don't care about privacy, do they?
| Guess showing them https://i.redd.it/0imry50rxy961.png
| still won't change anything..
| stackghost wrote:
| That is a thoroughly unconvincing graphic, yeah.
|
| A few of my neighbors have kids the same age as my kids,
| they're on a WhatsApp group chat, and my choice is either
| use WhatsApp or make my kid miss out on social events, so
| it's not really a choice.
|
| "Hey let's switch to this app that nobody else is using
| and it sends you annoying popups every month but trust me
| bro it's more secure" is not a winning argument
| amatecha wrote:
| The graphic has an error: in the Signal box, "Phone
| number" should be included.
| direwolf20 wrote:
| WhatsApp isn't any better, it's just more popular.
| littlecranky67 wrote:
| I get their point that you can't provide a "No" in the
| reminder. But there should be an option (maybe even hidden
| under "advanced settings - here be dragons!") for this.
| pzmarzly wrote:
| Molly, the Signal fork, has exactly this feature.
| https://molly.im/
| MiddleEndian wrote:
| >I get their point that you can't provide a "No" in the
| reminder.
|
| Yes you can. All reminders should have an option "Do not
| remind me again."
| MiddleEndian wrote:
| Every so often I consider writing the "STFU license."
| Something like GPL but if you use this code, even as a
| library, you can't give people unwanted notifications. Would
| need to be pretty comprehensive and forward compatible to
| cover all the crazy cases that notification-enthusiasts dream
| up.
| zombot wrote:
| They ran out of letter "o" supply, so they can't spell "no".
| amatecha wrote:
| I like to frame it like this: "ask me later" is rape culture.
| It promotes and reinforces a culture of never taking "no" for
| an answer, and pushing one's agenda/intent regardless of the
| preference/consent of the other party/parties.
| Quothling wrote:
| Lumo will likely be the thing that moves me away from Proton.
| I've been pretty happy with it, ever since they made the photo's
| app actually have shareable libraries it's been just as good as
| any other Google Mail/Photos/Files thing I've used. The password
| manager plugin for firefox isn't as good as bitwarden, but when
| you're paying it's part of the package so... If I have to encrypt
| my files before I use the drive, and they continue to build their
| AI spy into everything, though, then what is the point really?
|
| Anyway, it is sort of hilarious to report Proton as spam to
| Proton.
| TonyStr wrote:
| It's bewildering to see privacy-focused companies like Proton
| and DDG jump on the AI train. I guess privacy is just a vehicle
| for attracting early adopters, and all those principles fall
| apart once their user base becomes large enough.
| fundatus wrote:
| What's the issue with a privacy-focused AI assistant that
| doesn't store all your data?
| direwolf20 wrote:
| And completely optional.
| neobrain wrote:
| > I've been pretty happy with it, ever since they made the
| photo's app actually have shareable libraries it's been just as
| good as any other Google Mail/Photos/Files thing I've used.
|
| Glad to hear you found a service that's useful to you!
|
| > If I have to encrypt my files before I use the drive, and
| they continue to build their AI spy into everything, though,
| then what is the point really?
|
| That would be concerning indeed, but there is no such
| integration today and it seems unlikely they would integrate
| non-local models into drive. Even on the mail side, any use of
| LLMs is optional, opt-in, and limited to text production (i.e.
| no training on your inbox).
| perching_aix wrote:
| I have a Proton mailbox I specifically keep around to serve as a
| honeypot, for tracking when one of the many annoying little
| services will inevitably mishandle the contact address I hand
| them.
|
| Over the years, the only spam I ever received there was from
| Proton. Quite the way to recalibrate my expectations, eh?
| genewitch wrote:
| i think i have a proton email address, but i never used it. i
| wonder.
|
| but i pay fastmail a whopping $15/yr to give me mailboxes on my
| domain, which i have always heard is a good way to track who's
| selling your data.
|
| So far, nothing has made it past the spam filter, and i don't
| check spam (how many valid emails have you found in spam in the
| last 5 years?); that being said apparently no one is selling my
| email address anymore. or, and this is a significant
| possibility: when i tell them companynickname@mydomain.li they
| just ignore the domain and put in gmail? For instance i gave
| Take5 "take5@" as my email and i never received anything from
| them. The guy even said "No; _your_ email address " with a
| weird half smile; then i explained it's my own website and
| email, i can use any email address i want; that it will alert
| me if someone sells my email address.
|
| I doubt there's a flag on the auto oil shop's CRM or POS or
| whatever for "customer states they're proactive about email
| spam and their privacy"
| dwedge wrote:
| > (how many valid emails have you found in spam in the last 5
| years?)
|
| Personally, running SpamAssassin, zero.
|
| However, this seems to be getting worse with the big
| providers deciding to drop domains they don't like from time
| to time. Selfhosted email will work for 4 years and then
| Google or Microsoft will spam them for a month for no reason.
| It always starts working again because I assume that what
| they are doing is technically anti-trust and running it for
| too long would make it obvious.
| kenhwang wrote:
| Odd, I didn't even know Proton had an AI feature until I read
| this article. Didn't get an email or tooltip while using the app.
| Didn't previously explicitly opt-out either, and when I check my
| notification settings, Lumo product updates is set to disabled.
|
| Maybe someone's feature gate isn't working as intended?
|
| I did get the Github Copilot spam email today though.
| dwrolvink wrote:
| Me neither, it's probably related to OP having a business
| subscription
| zemnl wrote:
| I do think the same too, I have a Proton subscription (non-
| business), my "Lumo Product Updates" is toggled OFF and I've
| never received a single Lumo email so far.
| fergie wrote:
| > Proton for Business newsletter
|
| AFAIK you are legally allowed to spam businesses, but not
| individuals. A handy get-out clause for marketeers.
| robin_reala wrote:
| How do you know the address you're emailing belongs to a
| business? The head of A&A ISP in the UK used to regularly win
| ~PS100 judgements in small claims from spammers because his
| personal email was leased for a nominal fee from aa.net.uk, the
| same domain as his business.
| ivan_gammel wrote:
| If your email is used as a contact on Business subscription
| it is safe to assume that it is used for business purposes.
| fergie wrote:
| OP had checked that they would like to receive the "Proton
| for Business newsletter", and on that basis was deemed a
| "business".
| petesergeant wrote:
| I mean that's cute and all, but it's a party trick, and very
| unlikely it caused any actual behaviour to change.
| unethical_ban wrote:
| File under "some business bro had this classified in the wrong
| newsletter". I don't see the big deal and I don't extrapolate
| this into some systemic disease with marketing emails.
| direwolf20 wrote:
| They do it every single newsletter?
| unethical_ban wrote:
| aaand I was right (allegedly). Account claiming to be Proton
| CTO says it was a technical screw-up.
| ivan_gammel wrote:
| I think we must make it clear that this is not related to AI at
| all, even if the product in question is AI-related.
|
| It is a very common problem with modern marketing teams, that
| have zero empathy for customers (even if they have one, they will
| never push back on whatever insane demands come from senior
| management). This is why any email subscription management
| interface now is as bloated as a dead whale. If too many users
| unsubscribe, they just add one more category and "accidentally"
| opt-in everyone.
|
| It's a shame that Proton marketing team is just like every other
| one. Maybe it's a curse of growing organization and middle
| management creep. The least we can do is push back as customers.
| bayindirh wrote:
| I believe this is combined with something I call "asymmetry
| blindness". They may say "but we send an single e-mail per
| month, this can't be bad".
|
| We the users get a barrage of e-mails everyday because every
| marketing team is thinking we only get their mail, and it makes
| our lonely and cold mailbox merrier.
|
| No, users are in constant "Tsunami warning!" mode and these
| teams are not helping.
| pseudalopex wrote:
| Our subscription product costs less than expensive coffee.
| Unused RAM is wasted.
| setopt wrote:
| I guess the people you quote also missed that not all of us
| work in Silicon Valley and can afford those expensive
| coffees every day. I'd like an estimate of how many Nescafe
| powder coffee cups I'd have to skip per month to use their
| subscription.
| pjc50 wrote:
| Again, no raindrop considers itself responsible for the
| flood: if you buy enough coffee-priced subscriptions,
| that's unaffordable. Usually people already have their
| coffee-priced budget allocated to something. Like coffee.
|
| (Incidentally, this is why mobile gaming uses so many anti-
| patterns, to make people keep making "just one more" tiny
| purchase)
| robinsonb5 wrote:
| If they were sending just one per month I might actually read
| them occasionally. It's the three a day from the likes of
| aliexpress that get deleted without a second glance.
|
| But yes, you're absolutely right - "no raindrop considers
| itself responsible for the flood".
| malfist wrote:
| That marketing team only sends 1 email a month, but the 25
| other marketing teams at the same company also only send 1
| email a month.
| setopt wrote:
| Indeed. I received 28 unwanted emails of this kind in January
| so far (just counted), which is a bit more than once per day,
| despite quite avidly unsubscribing from this kind of emails.
| This month I had to unsubscribe from ChatGPT and GitHub
| emails of this kind too, although I don't recall opting in to
| them in the first place and neither of them spammed me until
| recently.
| chrisjj wrote:
| > although I don't recall opting in to them in the first
| place and neither of them spammed me until recently
|
| Dark pattern. They know you'd spot immediate abuse , so
| they delay until you are likely to have forgotten whether
| you opted in.
| pixl97 wrote:
| >unsubscribe from ChatGPT emails
|
| Really? I've never got a spam from them. Hell, I just
| searched and I'm not really seeing anything from them after
| the point where I signed up.
| setopt wrote:
| On Jan 11th I received "Easy self-care you can start
| today" advertising how ChatGPT can be used for meal
| planning or finding a local gym (ending with "Ask ChatGPT
| for more wellness tips"), and on Jan 19th I received "Use
| ChatGPT to make life easier" advertising how ChatGPT can
| for example improve my coffee brewing skills (ending with
| "Ask ChatGPT for more ways to get it all done"). I
| certainly consider these "spam", and until recently
| didn't receive such emails from them.
| ldng wrote:
| Did you by any chance report them to something like
| spamcop.net ?
|
| Aggressive spamming => Aggressive reporting.
| vintermann wrote:
| I'm pretty sure some people have performance metrics attached
| to their "newsletter".
| specproc wrote:
| The problem with tech is that there's absolutely zero
| accountability.
|
| Marketing is, to some extent at least, regulated. There's so
| little consumer protection in the tech industry, it's a joke.
| We've got GDPR (in Europe) and I'm really struggling to think
| what else. Imagine if other forms of engineering had the same
| level of control.
|
| There's this absolutely fallacious notion that in a free
| market, customers can just vote with their feet.
|
| From big players with vendor lock-in and network effects, to
| specialists (I know of few decent competitors to Proton), the
| average consumer is not sufficiently protected from
| malpractice.
|
| We may say, "oh, it's just a marketing email", but TFA
| perfectly encapsulates the relationship we have with our
| suppliers.
| amarcheschi wrote:
| Now that we're at it, let's talk about Google ads. I reported
| a Google ad because I deem it political, and in Europe you
| must make it clear that a political ad is a political ad and
| not just an ad (and it failed to do so, it should be
| corrected or eliminated).
|
| Google refused to comply and act in any way, because they
| "don't moderate 3rd party content". Except that EU says you
| _must_ comply if you're publishing a political ad. I'm
| bringing this forward with an appeal and then I'm going to
| escalate to the national authority if they still refuse to
| act.
|
| The laws are there. It's just that big tech think they can
| ignore them freely and even if down the road there's a fine
| it's going to be much less than what they gained by spreading
| ads.
| pixl97 wrote:
| >then I'm going to escalate to the national authority if
| they still refuse to act.
|
| You are actually doing this wrong...
|
| Report to the national authority first...
|
| Then report to Google.
|
| Fuck them, it is not in your interest to report to them
| first, make them react for their bullshit. Over here in the
| states this is how I ended up dealing with telecom in the
| ISP industry. "Hello, I have put in an FTC/FCC complaint on
| $issue, and would like to see about getting it resolved".
|
| It didn't matter that's not the order you're supposed to go
| in, at the telecom side they send it off to a team that
| actually gets shit solved before it becomes a regulatory
| problem.
| amarcheschi wrote:
| You might have a stronger case with the national
| authority if you first do the full "trail" of reporting,
| appealing, and eventually escalating.
|
| But yes, I feel that there's something wrong in having a
| stronger case if you first do it "gently" when they
| wouldn't bother if it were the other way
| pixl97 wrote:
| >You might have a stronger case with the national
| authority
|
| At least on the ISP side, we started doing it this way
| after the telcos would yank our chains for weeks or
| months first, when we had issues that needed to get
| solved quickly. More so I started working with our
| competitor ISPs because it was very common we'd all the
| have the same issues. More than one complaint of the same
| type in the same area to these agencies tends to get
| noticed and followed up quickly. The follow through
| process on it starts to get expensive for the telcos too.
|
| My next recommendation on this political ad bullshit is
| don't go at it alone. Find as many like minded people to
| dig up and complain on these ads as you can. Flood the
| regulators with violations that are occurring. When you
| think of it in reverse, these companies breaking the law
| will have no issues with pooling resources and going
| after you.
| chrisjj wrote:
| Enforcement in UK is pathetic e.g. HelloFresh's recent spam
| campaign cost it <0.2p per message in fines. A bargain.
| contubernio wrote:
| The problem is not just empathy. It is also ethics. The fine
| distinction between opting out of A and opting out of B
| described in the post served to justify ignoring the opt out
| request. That's lazy ethically. The entire US business sector's
| customer relations are completely compromised ethically. It's
| taken to extremes in tech contexts.
| Tarq0n wrote:
| In large organizations motivated reasoning trumps ethics.
| Behavior starts working along incentive gradients like an ant
| heap. Spend enough time in an environment like that and you
| learn to frame every selfish decision as good for the
| customer.
|
| I think maintaining ethics in large organizations is one of
| the main challenges of our time, now that mega corps dominate
| our time and attention.
| direwolf20 wrote:
| > Spend enough time in an environment like that and you
| learn to frame every selfish decision as good for the
| customer.
|
| This reminds me of "in order to save the environment, we
| are going to delete all of your recordings older than 2
| years, in 2 weeks. You can't download them."
| tanseydavid wrote:
| "Corporation are people, folks" said Mitt Romney (as a
| result of the Citizen United case). The whole thing is so
| cringe on so many levels.
|
| What Romney did not say is that these particular "people"
| tend strongly towards sociopathic behavior.
| SCdF wrote:
| I disagree: in as much as I have noticed this *far* more with
| AI than any other advancement / fad (depending on your opinion)
| than anything else before.
|
| This also tracks with every app and website injecting AI into
| every one of your interactions, with no way to disable it.
|
| I think the article's point about non-consent is a very apt
| one, and expresses why I dislike this trend so much. I left
| Google Workspace, as a paying customer for years, because they
| injected gemini into gmail etc and I couldn't turn it off (only
| those on the most expensive enterprise plans could at the time
| I left).
|
| To be clear I am someone that uses AI basically every day, but
| the non-consent is still frustrating and dehumanising. Users-
| even paying users-are "considered" in design these days as much
| as a cow is "considered" in the design of a dairy farm.
|
| I am moving all of the software that I pay for to competitors
| who either do not integrate AI, or allow me to disable it if I
| wish.
| dwedge wrote:
| Even WhatsApp has it in the search bar
| jasode wrote:
| _> I disagree: in as much as I have noticed this far more
| with AI than any other advancement / fad _
|
| I agree with gp that new spam emails that override customers'
| email marketing preferences is not an "AI" issue.
|
| The problem is that once companies have your email address,
| their _irresistible compulsion_ to spam you is so great that
| they will _deliberately not honor_ their own "Communication
| Preferences" that supposedly lets customers opt out of all
| marketing emails.
|
| Even companies that are mostly good citizens about obeying
| customers' email marketing preferences still end up making
| exceptions. Examples:
|
| Amazon has a profile page to opt out of all email marketing
| and it works... except ... it doesn't work to stop the new
| Amazon Pharmacy and Amazon Health marketing emails. Those
| emails do not have an "Unsubscribe" link and there is no
| extra setting in the customer profile to prevent them.
|
| Apple doesn't send out marketing messages and obeys their
| customers' marketing email preferences ... except .. when you
| buy a new iPhone and then they send emails about _" Your new
| iPhone lets you try Apple TV for 3 months free!"_ and then
| more emails about _" You have Apple Music for 3 months
| free!"_
|
| Neither of those aggressive emails have anything to do with
| AI. Companies just like to make exceptions to their rules to
| spam you. The customer's email inbox is just too valuable a
| target for companies to ignore.
|
| That said, I have 3 gmail.com addresses and _none of them_
| have marketing spam emails from Google about Gemini AI
| showing up in the Primary inbox. Maybe it 's commendable that
| Google is showing incredible restraint so far. (Or promoting
| Gemini in Chrome and web apps is enough exposure for them.)
| lelanthran wrote:
| > That said, I have 3 gmail.com addresses and none of them
| have marketing spam emails from Google about Gemini AI
| showing up in the Primary inbox.
|
| That's because they put their alerts in the gmail web
| interface :-/
|
| "Try $FOO for business" "Use drive ... blah blah blah"
|
| All of these can be dismissed, but new ones show up
| regularly.
| jasode wrote:
| _> That's because they put their alerts in the gmail web
| interface :-/_
|
| I agree and that's what I meant by Google's "web apps"
| having promos about Gemini.
|
| But in terms of accessing Gmail accounts _via the IMAP
| protocol_ in Mozilla Thunderbird, Apple Mail client, etc,
| there are no spam emails about Gemini AI. Google could
| easily pollute everybody 's gmail inboxes with endless
| spam about Gemini such that all email clients with IMAP
| access would also see them but that doesn't seem to
| happen (yet). I do see 1 promo email about Youtube
| Premium over the last 5 years. But zero emails about
| Google's AI.
| chrisjj wrote:
| > Maybe it's commendable that Google is showing incredible
| restraint so far.
|
| Or the Gmail spam filter is working.
| plagiarist wrote:
| > Apple doesn't send out marketing messages and obeys their
| customers' marketing email preferences ... except .. when
| you buy a new iPhone and then they send emails about "Your
| new iPhone lets you try Apple TV for 3 months free!" and
| then more emails about "You have Apple Music for 3 months
| free!"
|
| That's "transactional" I'm sure. It makes sense that a
| company is legally allowed to send transactional emails,
| but they all abuse it to send marketing bullshit wherever
| they can blur the line.
| chrisjj wrote:
| How is it transactional in any way? It looks to me like
| post-transaction upsell, pure and simple.
| plagiarist wrote:
| I 100% agree with you, but it seems like the courts do
| not. Even while they were functioning.
| chrisjj wrote:
| Has this been actually tested in court, though.
| duskdozer wrote:
| It's not, but it's their justification
| haritha-j wrote:
| > only those on the most expensive enterprise plans could at
| the time I left.
|
| lol. so the premium feature is the ability to turn off the
| AI? That's one way to monetise AI I suppose.
| FeteCommuniste wrote:
| Hahaha. It's like a protection racket for the new age.
|
| "Nice user experience you got there. Would be a real shame
| if AI got added to it."
| chrisjj wrote:
| > I left Google Workspace, as a paying customer for years,
| because they injected gemini into gmail
|
| I wonder if this varies by territory. In UK, none of the
| Gmail accounts I use has received this pollution
|
| > I am moving all of the software that I pay for to
| competitors who either do not integrate AI, or allow me to
| disable it if I wish.
|
| The latter sounds safer. The former may add "AI" tomorrow.
| SCdF wrote:
| I am in the UK. TBC this isn't a gmail.com email address,
| this is a paid "small business" workspace against a custom
| domain.
|
| Eventually they backtracked and allowed (I think?) all paid
| customers to disable gemini, but I had already migrated to
| Fastmail so :shrug:
| chrisjj wrote:
| Ah. My addresses are @gmail.com.
|
| Perhaps the fact you paid got you marked as a likely gull
| :)
| SCdF wrote:
| I think in that case you have even less ability to turn
| that stuff off? If it's not there for you yet, perhaps
| it's a slow rollout still?
| chrisjj wrote:
| Perhaps yes. We'll see :(
| browningstreet wrote:
| Gmail <> Google Workspaces
| chrisjj wrote:
| Maybe not _equal_ but when I launch Gmail the page says
| "Google Workspace" and I get Gmail, Docs etc. as per
| https://workspace.google.com/intl/en_uk/resources/what-
| is-wo... .
| everyday7732 wrote:
| To add to this, it's the same attitude that they used to
| create the AI in the first place by using content which they
| don't own, without permission. Regardless of how useful it
| may be, the companies creating it and including it have
| demonstrated time and again that they do not care about
| consent.
| mjparrott wrote:
| How can you get a machine to have values? Humans have
| values because of social dynamics and education (or lack of
| exposure to other types of education). Computers do not
| have social dynamics, and it is much harder to control what
| they are being educated on if the answer is "everything".
| thatguy0900 wrote:
| Maybe if we can't build a machine that isn't a sociopath
| the answer should be don't build the machine rather then
| oh well go ahead and build the sociopaths
| GreenWatermelon wrote:
| This has real Torment Nexus[0] energy
|
| [0] Sci-Fi Author: In my book I invented the Torment
| Nexus as a cautionary tale.
|
| Tech Company: At long last, we have created the Torment
| Nexus from classic sci-fi novel Don't Create The Torment
| Nexus
| Forgeties79 wrote:
| That sounds like the valued-at-billions-and-drowning-in-
| funding company's problem. The issue is they just go
| "there are no consequences for solving this, so we simply
| won't."
| b00ty4breakfast wrote:
| It's not hard if the people in charge had any scruples at
| all. These machines never could have done anything if
| some human being, somewhere in the chain, hadn't decided
| that "yeah, I think we _will_ do {nefarious_thing} with
| our new technology ". Or should we start throwing up our
| hands when someone gets stabbed to death like "well, I
| guess knives don't have human values".
|
| Human beings are doing this.
| kelseyfrog wrote:
| > How can you get a machine to have values?
|
| The short answer is a reward function. The long answer is
| the alignment problem.
|
| Of course, everything in the middle is what matters.
| Explicitly defined reward functions are complete, but not
| consistent. Data defined rewards are potentially
| consistent but incomplete. It's not a solvable problem
| form machines but equally likewise for humans. Still we
| practice, improve and middle through dispite this and
| approximate improvement hopefully, over long enough
| timescales.
| janalsncm wrote:
| Well, it's pretty clear to me that the current reward
| function of profit maximization has a lot of down sides
| that aren't sufficiently taken into account.
| janalsncm wrote:
| I'd argue that a lot of the scrape-and-train is just the
| newest and most blatant exploitation of the relationship
| that always existed, not a renegotiation of it. Stack
| overflow monetized millions of hours of people's work. Same
| thing with Reddit and Twitter and plenty of other websites.
|
| Legally it is different with books (as Anthropic found out)
| but I would argue morally it is more similar: forum users
| and most authors write not for money, but because they
| enjoy it.
| mjparrott wrote:
| Imagine making this argument for other technologies. There is
| no opt-out button for machine learning, choosing the power
| source for their datacenters, the coding language in their
| software, etc. Conceptually there is a difference between
| opting out of an interaction with another party vs opting out
| of a specific part of their technology stack.
| SCdF wrote:
| The three examples you listed are implementation details,
| so it's not clear if this is a serious post. Which
| datacenter they deploy code in is (other than territory for
| laws etc, which is something you may wish to know about and
| pick from) an implementation detail.
|
| A better example would be: imagine every single operating
| system and app you use adds spellcheck. They only let you
| spell check in American[1]. You will get spell check
| prompts from your Operating System, your browser, and the
| webapp you're in. You can turn none of them off.
|
| [1] in this example, you speak the Queen's English, so
| spell color colour etc
| thatguy0900 wrote:
| Unrelated but interesting to think about terms like
| "queens English" now that the queen is gone. Will we be
| back to kings English some day? I suppose the monarchy
| might stay too irrelevant to bother changing phrases.
| Fabricio20 wrote:
| Yeah this is not a new thing with AI, you can unsubscribe all
| you want, they are still gonna email you about "seminars" and
| other bullshit. AWS has so many of those and your email is
| permanently in their database, even if you delete your
| account. I also still get Oracle Cloud emails even though I
| told them to delete my account as well, so I can't even log
| in anymore to update preferences!
| malfist wrote:
| Fun fact, requiring login for unsubscribe is illegal per
| the canspam act. The most you can do is force a user to
| verify their email address to you.
| parliament32 wrote:
| The shift from "you just don't understand" to damage control
| would be funny if it wasn't so transparent.
|
| > We have identified a bug in our system... we take
| communication consent very seriously
|
| > There was a bug, and we fucked up... we take comms consent
| seriously
|
| These two actors were clearly coached into the same
| narrative. I also absolutely don't believe them at all: some
| PM made the conscious decision to bypass user preferences to
| increase some KPI that pleases some AI-invested stakeholder.
| tzs wrote:
| > I disagree: in as much as I have noticed this _far_ more
| with AI than any other advancement / fad (depending on your
| opinion) than anything else before
|
| Isn't that because most of the other advancements/fads were
| not as widely applicable?
|
| With earlier things there was usually only particular kinds
| of sites or products where they would be useful. You'd still
| get some people trying to put them in places they made no
| sense, but most of the places they made no sense stayed
| untouched.
|
| With AI, if well done, it would be useful nearly everywhere.
| It might not be well done enough yet for some of the places
| people are putting it so ends up being annoying, but that's a
| problem of them being premature, not a problem of them
| wanting to put AI somewhere it makes no sense.
|
| There have been previous advancements that were useful nearly
| everywhere, such as the internet or the microcomputer, but
| they started out with limited availability and took many
| years to become widely available so they were more like
| several smaller advancements/fads in series rather than one
| big one like AI.
| SCdF wrote:
| > With AI, if well done, it would be useful nearly
| everywhere.
|
| I fundamentally disagree with this.
|
| I never, now or in the future, want to use AI to generate
| or alter communication or expression primarily between me
| and other humans.
|
| I do not want emails or articles summarised, I do not
| emails or documents written for me, I do not want my photos
| altered yassified. Not now, not ever.
| homebrewer wrote:
| How about machine translation and fixing grammar in
| languages you're not very familiar with? That's the only
| use of "AI" I've found so far. I'd rather read (and
| write) broken English in informal contexts like this
| forum, but there are enough more formal situations.
| parliament32 wrote:
| If you're not familiar, how could you possibly know if
| what you're conveying is accurate to your intention? And
| if you don't, why bother at all?
| SCdF wrote:
| Remember, I am responding to this:
|
| > With AI, if well done, it would be *useful nearly
| everywhere.*
|
| I'm not saying it doesn't have uses.
|
| Having said that, there are two things I never want AI to
| do: a) degrade or remove the need for me to express
| myself as a human being, b) do work I'd have to redo to
| prove it did it correctly.
|
| On translation, sycophancy is a problem. I can't find it
| now, but there was an article I read about an LLM
| mistranslating papers to exclude data it thought the user
| wasn't interested in. So no, I wouldn't trust it for
| anything I cared about.
|
| I do use AI: I'm literally reviewing some Claude
| generated code at the moment. But I can read that and
| know that it's done it right (or not, as the case often
| is). This is different from translation or summarisation,
| where I'd have to do the whole task again to prove
| correctness.
| expedition32 wrote:
| This is a very strange argument. If AI was so bloody
| revolutionary than you didn't have to sneak it into your
| products without consent.
|
| Very often AI seems to be a solution looking for a problem.
| lynx97 wrote:
| It is an error to believe this is only happening in/with
| marketing. In general, "empathy" and "capitalism" are mutually
| exclusive. If profit is your goal, you don't care about
| individuals.
| lawtalkinghuman wrote:
| > I think we must make it clear that this is not related to AI
| at all
|
| There are clear AI-specific reasons why it's being crammed down
| everybody's necks.
|
| Namely: someone in management has bet the entire strategy on
| it. The strategy is not working and they need to juice the
| numbers desperately.
| philipwhiuk wrote:
| It's not really AI itself though, it's just whatever the
| current hype cycle is - it was crypto and cloud before this.
| marginalia_nu wrote:
| Cloud is probably the better comparison, since crypto never
| had the sort of mainstream management buy-in that the other
| two got. Microsoft's handling of OneDrive in particular
| foreshadows how AI is being pushed out.
| lawtalkinghuman wrote:
| The difference is OneDrive is moderately useful.
| rolph wrote:
| i dont like onedrive very much. i get it its useful as a
| pigeonhole, what i really dont like is how it is used.
| its the thing that moves files to onedrive and destroys
| local copies, that i hate, and onedrive is something that
| enables that. so i dont hate onedrive, i just dont like
| it.
| xigoi wrote:
| LLMs are also moderately useful.
| blibble wrote:
| the comparison is pretty good actually
|
| "AI" agents randomly delete your files
|
| and so does OneDrive
| antiframe wrote:
| I have never received a Crypto spam email from any place
| where I opted out from it. Same for cloud. It feels
| different. With crypto it was everyone wanting to ride the
| hype train. With AI they spent a bunch of money up front
| and are desperate to see ROI.
| littlestymaar wrote:
| > It's a shame that Proton marketing team is just like every
| other one.
|
| Having gone through the Proton hiring process was an eye opener
| for me: despite its stated mission, the company isn't special
| when it comes to its management, it's as bad as any other.
| vintermann wrote:
| To name and shame two: LinkedIn and MyHeritage. If you ever
| made an account with either of them, they will never stop
| spamming you. They have configuration options to select which
| mail to receive, but they appear to consider them temporary
| suggestions.
|
| A special dishonourable mention goes to Wal-mart. I never
| interacted with them in any way whatsoever, as well I wouldn't
| since they don't exist on my continent as far as I know, yet
| they still send me spam. DKIM signed and all!
| alibarber wrote:
| LinkedIn once seemed to somehow go through my (GMail?)
| contacts and ask if I should invite my, late, grandfather to
| the platform in the subject of a marketing message.
|
| Left a bitter taste.
| shantnutiwari wrote:
| > I think we must make it clear that this is not related to AI
| at all
|
| Yeah, many companies do that. I unsusbcribed from newline, they
| still keep spamming me. Funny thing is, they realised they had
| made a mistake and promised to remove unsubs. One week later,
| the spam started.
|
| The correct solution is the spam button. Always
| chrisjj wrote:
| The spam button risks false positives.
| saghm wrote:
| It's not a false positive to classify a company as a bad
| actor and move their emails to the spam folder if they
| refuse to respect user choices. If anything, I wish it
| would happen more often and at a massive scale, because
| then maybe companies would have an incentive to stop being
| so hostile around this.
| chrisjj wrote:
| Agreed, but the false positive I am referring to is the
| cathching of the non-spam message from the source of the
| previous spam message.
| flexagoon wrote:
| > The correct solution is the spam button. Always
|
| The correct solution is filing complaints with your country's
| relevant authority
| shantnutiwari wrote:
| In theory. In practice-- I would spend all my time just
| filing complaints, because today, in 2026, I get more spam
| from "legitimate" companies than "Nigerian scammer" types
| duskdozer wrote:
| I wish I could without going through a long process
| involving tons of personal info
| Bombthecat wrote:
| I feel more and more like. That email should be like DMs.
|
| Do you want to accept emails from xxx?
|
| Yes
|
| No
|
| On client side...
| chrisjj wrote:
| Very dangerous, when the same From address may be used for
| "Log in inside 14 days or your dormant account will be
| deleted".
| chihuahua wrote:
| I think that would lead to this:
|
| Do you want to accept emails from "For a limited time, save
| up to 35% on orders from Fluppsi! Click Yes for this amazing
| opportunity!"
| chrisjj wrote:
| > I think we must make it clear that this is not related to AI
| at all, even if the product in question is AI-related.
|
| It is not _specific_ to "AI" but it is very much related to
| it.
|
| > If too many users unsubscribe, they just add one more
| category and "accidentally" opt-in everyone
|
| ... and "forget" to add its opt-out to the list.
| hsbauauvhabzb wrote:
| There's probably a bigger association with it. I don't like ai
| and see it _everywhere_ , in every app I use, every service I
| purchase, my goddamn start bar.
|
| So, when they start emailing unwanted emails, it feels like a
| spam problem, when really it's insidious on multiple fronts.
|
| I can't wait for the enshittification phase. When the products
| royally fuck their fan base.
| hojiron wrote:
| Still happy that Tuta Mail is anti AI, and does not push ads on
| you via email.
|
| I wonder who told Proton that it's a good idea to copy big tech
| tactics.
| chrisjj wrote:
| Does??
|
| > I wonder who told Proton that it's a good idea to copy big
| tech tactics.
|
| The lure of big tech profits.
| hojiron wrote:
| Not :)
| ToucanLoucan wrote:
| Genuinely: _What profits!?!_ The only company profiting
| from AI has been nVidia. Every indicator we 've received
| for this entire alleged industry is companies buying
| hundreds of millions of dollars in graphics cards that then
| either sit in warehouses depreciating in value or, worse,
| are plugged in and immediately start losing money.
|
| The tech industry has coasted on it's hypergrowth story for
| decades, a story laden with as many bubbles as actual
| industries that sprang up. All the good ideas are done now.
| All the products anyone actually needs exist, are
| enshittified, and are selling user data to anyone who will
| pay, including products that exist solely to remove your
| data from everyone who bought it and probably then sell it
| to some other people.
|
| This shit is stupid at this point. All Silicon Valley has
| to do is to grow up into a mature industry with sensible
| business practices and sustainable models of generating
| revenue that in most other industries would be fantastic,
| and they're absolutely apoplectic about this. They are so
| addicted to the easy, cheap services that upended entire
| other industries and made them rich beyond imagining that
| they will literally say, out loud, with their human mouths,
| that it is a _bad, undesirable thing_ to simply _have a
| business that makes some money._
|
| The people at the top of this industry are literally
| fucking deranged and should be interred at a psychiatric
| facility for awhile for their and everyone else's good.
| chrisjj wrote:
| > Genuinely: What profits!?!
|
| Those foreseen. :)
|
| (Should have gone to Specsavers.)
| pixl97 wrote:
| >All Silicon Valley has to do is to grow up into a mature
| industry with sensible business practices
|
| Negative sum game: Growing up is easy _if_ it doesn 't
| kill you. The problem with being ethical when everyone
| else is unethical is that you'll likely go broke.
|
| The next issue is we're seeing, is not that Silicon
| Valley is ever going to improve, but the bullshit is
| spreading to eat up every other industry in the US.
| Engaging in outright fraudulent behavior is A'ok in the
| US (I mean we even elected a president convicted on a
| pile of counts of fraud).
|
| Effectively industries cannot manage themselves, we need
| regulations to prevent them from being bastards. Problem,
| we elect bastards that cannot keep from committing fraud
| themselves.
|
| It doesn't get better from here.
| kmeisthax wrote:
| If you're not the shareholder, you're the product.
|
| The business model of any publicly traded corporation, at
| least in 2025, is to increase the value of its
| circulating stock. No more and no less. The nominal
| business model of the company is a cover story to make
| line go up. The reason why the stock price matters is
| because of access to capital markets: if a business wants
| to buy another business, they are not going to dip into
| the cash on hand. They are going to take out a loan, and
| that loan is collateralized by... the value of the
| business. Which is determined by the stock price.
|
| So if you can keep the line going up, you can keep buying
| competitors. But if you act like a normal, mature
| business, you can't.
|
| Profit as a concept is a concern for capitalism. But
| these businesses are not interested in capitalism,
| they're angling to become the new lords of a growing
| feudal economy. That's what "going meta" really means.
| microtonal wrote:
| * I wonder who told Proton that it's a good idea to copy big
| tech tactics.*
|
| But people subscribe to Proton because they want to move away
| from big tech. What's the point of paying them if they get as
| bad.
|
| Though for now I'll assume that it's a genuine mistake with
| things not properly escalated by customer support.
| skywhopper wrote:
| It is entirely related, because AI marketing is an amped up
| version of traditional dark-pattern marketing. And since every
| tech company is on the AI hype train, then they all fall into
| the same willingness to justify the worst behavior because of
| their desperate need to get on the forefront of what they've
| convinced themselves is the only path to growth. But as
| consumers, since we are confronted with all tech companies all
| following the same dark patterns, we feel the impact suddenly
| much stronger than with past one-at-a-time panicky company
| over-marketing efforts.
| boringg wrote:
| The idea that the marketing team has the ability to really push
| back against senior management doesn't align with the reality I
| have seen. The best they can do is say that this will do brand
| damage -- but they don't have the ability to really call the
| shots. Most organizations marketing is not in a real seat of
| power - more like an advisory position.
|
| I'm not trying to unfair to marketing - they do have an
| important role - I have hardly seen a company give marketing
| real power at an org. So the idea that this is because
| marketing don't push back on senior management -- is because
| they know they don't have the power to do this.
| xigoi wrote:
| "I was just following orders" is not an excuse. If your job
| requires you to do immoral things, it is your responsibility
| to quit.
| xnx wrote:
| > If too many users unsubscribe, they just add one more
| category and "accidentally" opt-in everyone.
|
| I always "report spam" ("!" key in GMail) before unsubscribing.
| janalsncm wrote:
| This was my first reaction too. It is a bit ironic that the
| issue of "overlapping labels" can be applied to the OP as well.
|
| My instinct is to classify this as an email consent issue not
| because AI needs defending, but because the solution need not
| be specific to AI. The Next Big Thing will also probably have
| this problem because marketing is at odds making your customers
| happy with a great product.
| autoexec wrote:
| The spam was advertising AI, the point of the article was how
| aggressively AI is being shoved down our throats, and it seems
| very likely that when he went to complain about the AI spam it
| was an an AI chatbot which gave him the useless answers until
| it finally "checked with the team" (presumably a human) who
| lied to him about what counted as AI spam.
|
| It seems like this is very much about AI even though it's
| ultimately humans pushing AI and disregarding people's spam
| preferences. Right now, everything "AI" is ultimately humans
| (like the way humans are using/abusing the AI tools, or the
| human intellect behind all of the data that was used to train
| them and all of the knowledge they output, or the humans
| deciding what they'll allow their AI to be used for, or the
| humans failing to safeguard the users of their AI products,
| etc) so this is as much about AI as anything is.
| jasode wrote:
| _> The spam was advertising AI, the point of the article was
| how aggressively AI [...] It seems like this is very much
| about AI _
|
| Yes, the gp you responded to already said the same thing that
| the particular email was about AI (Lumos) when he wrote : _>
| ", even if the product in question is AI-related."_
|
| To go beyond that, the gp highlighted that the bad behavior
| is rooted in companies ignoring customers' email preferences
| instead of the AI. The article is misdiagnosing the unwanted
| email issue as "AI Consent Problem" when it's actually
| fundamentally about "Email Consent Problem". The author
| deliberately opted out of email marketing and Proton ignored
| it (by "mistake") and _this is a common misbehavior companies
| did before AI_. It 's worth separating those 2 factors out.
|
| We get unwanted spam about "Amazon Pharmacy" and "Apple TV"
| but that doesn't mean we misdiagnose it as _" Pharmacy
| Consent Problem"_ and _" Apple TV Consent Problem"_. Instead,
| the generalization is still fundamentally an "email consent"
| problem. Always has been. That's what the gp was emphasizing.
|
| Likewise, if a future hot technology household such as
| residential robots causes email marketing campaigns that
| blasts unwanted spam about Tesla house robots... the issue of
| that unwanted spam _" Tesla robots 10% off!"_ ... is still
| about ignoring Tesla's customers' _email preferences_. The
| unwanted robots themselves would be a separate issue.
| Companies will continue to make "mistakes" to send out new
| marketing email spam with <HotNewThing> in the subject field
| that infuriate customers. And that future root cause of the
| problem still won't be <HotNewThing> but instead about
| companies ignoring customers email preferences because the
| incentives and greed are too great.
| bflesch wrote:
| Ever since my first interaction with their support is was clear
| that they DGAF about usability improvements that I'd care about.
| Time to build an alternative I guess.
| causalscience wrote:
| I only use Proton for the spam or temporary low value (and free)
| email accounts. Proton also tries to do everything, which I don't
| like. If I did I'd use Google.
|
| The thing I pay for is Tuta. The cheapest tier is way more
| generous than Proton and the product is simpler.
| guilhermesfc wrote:
| I have also been using Tuta for years. No complaints
| littlecranky67 wrote:
| I have the exact opposite opinion. I use proton business
| together with their email, vpn, calendar, drive (on macOS),
| password manager etc. and switched specifically because of
| their encryption, data protection and fulls-size feature
| bundle. Plus, I migrated vom Office365 and it became a shitshow
| to manage and was full of bugs. And I had a separate bitwarden
| subscription, and a separate VPN subscription. Now it is one
| package, much preferred.
| causalscience wrote:
| Oh yeah, having your passwords online is a great idea /s
| littlecranky67 wrote:
| It is, if they are encrypted. Without a password manager, I
| would inevitable have to reuse the same passwords over and
| over on my hundreds of different accounts. With a password
| manager, they are auto-generated random gibberish. And yes,
| even when using 2FA, you should have different passwords
| for all accounts.
|
| Bitwarden, OnePassword, LastPass, Proton Pass etc. are
| password managers with dozens of millions of users that
| agree.
| causalscience wrote:
| It's not, because the world we live in isn't binary. It's
| not true that "it's encrypted therefore nothing can go
| wrong". Putting your password manager online increases
| the risk of an accident.
|
| And just because millions of people think this is a good
| idea, doesn't make it a good idea. Millions of people
| also reuse their passwords and that doesn't make it a
| good idea either.
| littlecranky67 wrote:
| Of course it is a tradeoff between security and
| usability. Not putting your passwords online forces you
| to either remember all passwords (which will lead to re-
| use) or you will be only available to access your
| accounts (and thus most of the internet) from your home.
| Or you will have to come up with elaborate system how to
| carry your passwords on some kind of secured device etc.
| A password manager (alongside 2FA) is a very good
| security/usability compromise for a lot of people. YMMV.
| throwaway173738 wrote:
| The thing is that accounts get cracked because of reuse
| all the time. Whereas they seldom if at all get cracked
| because they're in a password manager.
| causalscience wrote:
| That's why I don't do either of those.
| bigstrat2003 wrote:
| Good for you. The rest of us mortals who can't memorize
| dozens of unique complex passwords need to use a password
| manager.
| celsoazevedo wrote:
| I understand the convenience side of this, but it's also
| risky. What happens if they suspend your account for some
| reason?
|
| "Never put all your eggs in one basket."
| LandenLove wrote:
| I also received the email from github about AI that the author
| mentioned. No matter what you do, they will keep pushing the AI
| slop onto you.
|
| For me, these kinds of emails especially stick out, because I
| like to keep my proton inbox clean and unsubscribe from
| everything I can.
| BrouteMinou wrote:
| I canceled my subscription, and deleted my account due to the
| nagging and promotional annoyances.
|
| I've contacted the support, but they basically don't care.
|
| There are not multiple ways to fight back against this behavior.
| I am now with mailfence until they start the same circus.
| unethical_ban wrote:
| Y'all are wild. I have most of their emails turned on and
| barely think about Proton's comms. Rarely get one, briefly skim
| if I do.
| Night_Thastus wrote:
| Yeah, I've always been surprised at how negative HN can get
| about Proton. They're not perfect, but man at least they're
| _trying_ to fight the privacy fight.
|
| I've always had a very good experience with them. It's cheap,
| fast and their spam filter works well. Maybe 1x-2x a year I
| get an email from them about some promotion but that's it.
| cheschire wrote:
| I always wondered if it's just a few actually upset
| customers mixed with a ton of astroturfing by competitors
| pretending to be outraged proton customers.
| cantalopes wrote:
| I also get pretty pissed of just ignoring gdpr, i just started to
| downright threaten them on support channels reminding that
| ignoring gdpr may cost them 2% of annual company turnover or 2
| mil. eur, whichever is higher.
|
| You would be surprised how many ridiculous "oh sorry some error
| in system" excuses you're gonna get. Right, that email
| accidentally slipped INSERT INTO spam slop database on its own.
|
| And since i started to not explicitly opting in anywhere i know
| that when i receive a marketing email its abuse of my personal
| information. Under gdpr you need to explicitly consent to
| marketing communication. When you register to a service and
| receive spam you need to opt out from - that's an abuse. Some
| company try to argue they do so under "legitimate interest"
| clausule but that's bs and would not hold in court. For example,
| purchasing a product is not a valid legitimate interest for
| sending out eshop spam, they would lose.
|
| When the incident repeats or i just get really pissed i go full
| karen and report them to authorities. I know two busisses had
| legal troubles because of me because i received deeper follow up
| emails while solving the case and i am happy for it.
|
| One company that abused my personal data that i ended up not
| reporting was Telekom: when i contacted their support about spam
| incident and asked them for log of personal data and all of my
| consent logs and physical signatures to prove my consent, after
| which they said "it was a db error" (lol), and when the incident
| repeated i told them i am about to report them and they offered
| me 1 year of free internet - i said ok and never received a
| single spam from them ever again.
|
| Fight back, you have the screenshots, you have the logs, ask for
| proof, report.
| direwolf20 wrote:
| You can take the 1 year free internet, and then report them.
| It's not legal to commit a crime and then bribe someone not to
| report it.
| anigbrowl wrote:
| This isn't an AI issue. Marketing departments have been like this
| forever, or at least since the infamous Canter & Siegel 'Green
| Card' email.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laurence_Canter_and_Martha_Sie...
| LucaMo wrote:
| Legit point and agreed with everything, however wait until an
| email address of yours reaches the database of lead generation
| websites and you will see that you will never be able to keep
| count of the violations. Newsletter lists add your email in
| automatically and people sell you stuff without the unsubscribe
| button in the email, so no way to block them... I understand your
| concern but dealing with far worse
| dostick wrote:
| Even more hypocrisy:- if you have Proton Unlimited subscription,
| Lumo AI will be limited, not remembering conversations. And when
| it's promoting you to upgrade, mentions in the same message that
| your Lumo is limited while you have Unlimited subscription.
| grub5000 wrote:
| I'm not sure it's quite fair to call this hypocrisy. Lumo was
| introduced separately after the Proton Unlimited subscription,
| and it was never claimed to be included in Unlimited (they also
| have a handful of other products like Standard Notes that are
| not included)
| danielhep wrote:
| This problem, along with general annoyances at Proton's lack of
| focus on a good email experience pushed me over the edge to move
| to Fastmail. I'm so much happier. Proton Mail Bridge would often
| pin one core of my laptop CPU, draining my battery, and it was
| still slow to sync new email. With Fastmail, incoming mail is so
| fast that the verification codes are already there before I can
| alt tab over.
| StrangeSound wrote:
| I'm in the same boat. I think part of that is Proton is spread
| across a huge suite of products and features, whereas Fastmail
| is specialised in one.
| Cthulhu_ wrote:
| It feels like Proton is trying to build a solid Europe-based
| alternative to Microsoft 365, which is necessary but also
| very ambitious and expensive.
| throwaway173738 wrote:
| Proton's pricing is really frustrating for me because I
| want to buy upgrades to only a few services like Pass and
| email. Your only option on their service is to select
| either Pass or Mail. You cannot buy both and you will be
| downgraded on one if you try to buy the other.
| jnurmine wrote:
| Doesn't Proton Unlimited have both?
| chrisjj wrote:
| > Fastmail is specialised in one.
|
| Sadly untrue since they added calendar. However I'd would say
| the email service and support remain excellent regardless.
| DerArzt wrote:
| Email and calendar go together like bread and butter.
| hn111 wrote:
| Same here, I've found too many bugs in Proton's email client
| and instead of fixing them they just release new products.
| FastMail support has been great, I think the developers
| themselves reply (some of the?) emails, going into technical
| details and being actually helpful.
| chrisjj wrote:
| > FastMail support has been great
|
| Seconded, failing only when up against tricky issues like
| insecurity of their so-called secure Masked Email.
| qaz_plm wrote:
| I'm a heavy user of masked emails from Fastmail. Can you
| expound on the insecurity you mentioned?
| chrisjj wrote:
| "WARNING: Fastmail Masked Email insecurity"
| https://www.emaildiscussions.com/showthread.php?t=81287
| qaz_plm wrote:
| Appreciate the follow up!
| nonninz wrote:
| I may be in the same boat.
|
| Is Fastmail an US company though?
| BoboDupla wrote:
| Fastmail is an Australian company.
| elashri wrote:
| They solely use US servers [1] and don't have plans to offer
| EU or any non-US servers though.
|
| [1] https://old.reddit.com/r/fastmail/comments/1jbryai/europe
| an_...
| cyrialize wrote:
| Fastmail is awesome! I've been a happy user for a long time.
| Everything just works. The UI is great, nothing gets in my way.
|
| I'm a fan of the randomly generated emails as well. That
| service integrates with 1Password too.
| joshuat wrote:
| The 1P integration is a pretty compelling feature
| HackerThemAll wrote:
| I lost all respect for Proton. They've been running ragebait ad
| campaign on Facebook, maybe also on other media, I don't know
| that, with that rage especially targeted at Google, spreading
| fake information and hate.
| pelario wrote:
| could you tell more details or links about that ?
| osmsucks wrote:
| Great timing: I just received a Copilot spam email from GitHub. I
| don't remember opting in to such marketing communications,
| instead I generally opt-out from such communications as soon as I
| sign up to a service...
| Tepix wrote:
| Same here. They created a new newsletter and added you to it
| without your consent.
| antonyh wrote:
| I got the same email on the same date. Unsubscribe told me it was
| from the 'important announcements' list - I fail to see how this
| could possibly fall into that category.
|
| I guess I can't have important announcements from Proton in the
| future if it's polluted with these low value messages.
| dwedge wrote:
| There's one recruiting company I had contact with in 2017 (pre-
| GDPR, with no checked consent after) and they keep sending me
| marketing-disguised-as-GDPR emails. "Reply to tell us you want to
| keep hearing about our career insights newsletter that you never
| signed up for, or we'll delete your data in 30 days".
|
| In the end I got sick of them repeating this and never deleting
| the data, so I sent them a SAR. I don't care what data they have
| but if they want to play the GDPR game so do I.
| dwedge wrote:
| This is good timing actually. I've been self-hosting SimpleLogin
| for a while but was considering the lifetime subscription to
| Proton to get it (it comes with ProtonPass but I selfhost
| VaultWarden).
|
| Last week I logged into my Proton mail that I'd used last year
| for some government contact to get the dates, and they'd deleted
| the account for inactivity. Ok, I don't pay, they're entitled.
| But now I see this and I think maybe I'll save the $150 or
| whatever it is.
| mtlmtlmtlmtl wrote:
| I'm so fed up with Proton. I will be taking my business
| elsewhere. Instead of making a great product for X, they've
| decided to make a series of extremely mediocre products for P, Q,
| X, Y, Z and W, all of which are left missing the most basic
| features for _years_. Features which even the free alternatives
| already have. Things like supporting unicode in email headers
| without having to use punycode, creating mailboxes from sieve
| filters and a bunch of other sieve expansions, and decent,
| portable, non-bugridden integration with email clients.
| Protondrive has such dogshit speeds it 's basically completely
| useless. The nat-pmp support on their vpn servers is very
| strange, and it took me a couple weeks to craft a script that
| could handle all of its idiosyncrasies, none of which are
| documented. I haven't even bothered trying their calendar,
| password manager, or the Yet Another AI Service they keep sending
| me upselling emails for. I don't need any of those things, but
| I'm sure they have similarly lacklustre feature parity.
|
| Doesn't help that when i notify them about these things, their
| support people just gaslight me. "I've notified our development
| team about this". Then nothing happens. I told them about the
| speed issue with protondrive when it was new, that was years ago
| now. Still not fixed, no updates, nada.
|
| I will be moving to something like fastmail, plus some other vpn
| service, since those are the only two products of theirs I'm
| actually using. It seems like I'll get a far better product in
| both cases for almost half the overall cost.
| gingerlime wrote:
| I've had a similar experience when signing up for Office365 and
| started getting promotional emails to CoPilot. These (2) emails
| were without an unsubscribe option.
|
| I contacted MS support and after some back n forth they claimed
| it was a transactional email that doesn't require consent or opt
| out.
|
| Clearly promotional and not necessary but they won't listen.
|
| I'm in the process of filing GDPR + ePrivacy complaints, but it's
| a tedious process, unlikely to do anything.
| tmarice wrote:
| I've been using Fastmail for years now, and I'm completely
| satisfied. Custom domain + built-in masked email functionality
| works great.
| chrisjj wrote:
| The FM Masked Email is insecure in that there is a circumstance
| under which it can leak your real email.
| jofzar wrote:
| > I don't know about you, but I think that's baloney. Proton
| Support had five full business days to come up with a better
| excuse. Please tell me, how can I have been any more explicit
| about opting out of Lumo emails, only to receive "Try Lumo" "From
| Lumo", and be told that is not actually a Lumo email?
|
| As someone who is in support in tech (not proton) I can tell you
| exactly what happened.
|
| Day 1 they already knew which email it was, they probably had
| other tickets about this, they probably had an open discussion
| about this with marketing/product team.
|
| Day 2-4 was the support agent arguing with marketing/product
| about how it's absolute bullshit to send out a AI newsletter when
| the user has it unticked and what they are going to do so it
| doesn't happen in the future.
|
| Day 5 is marketing/product telling them that this is Working as
| designed and theu aren't going to stop this in the future. This
| is the day the support person works on this email with their team
| and potentially their manager.
|
| It goes through a couple of "rewrites" for liability/protecting
| ass. The end result is the email you got, they know you are going
| to give a bad CSAT/NPS survey and it's going to kill their
| metrics.
|
| They want nothing more to write and email that says, "Sorry
| marketing and product are fucking idiots and can't read. I fought
| for this to be disabled, but told me it's not going to happen,
| sorry" but culture and then not wanting to lose their jobs is why
| they didn't send this.
|
| I really hope you didn't give them a bad survey.
| direwolf20 wrote:
| I hope they sued
| redbell wrote:
| Here we are! Day after day, I realize that even smaller tech
| companies suffer from or could not resist the temptation of
| _Enshittification_ [1] once they start gaining some momentum. I
| feel this path had became inevitable since everybody is doing
| this, _at scale_. I barely could recall some names that stuck to
| their original motto over time.
|
| ____________________
|
| 1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enshittification
| direwolf20 wrote:
| You do what makes money, or you are eliminated from the game.
| Such is life in capitalism.
| dschuetz wrote:
| Every company seems to scramble trying to sell AI based products
| they have invested in so heavily, disregarding whether anyone
| needed them at all in the first place.
|
| This AI thing is going to implode so hard.
| mark_l_watson wrote:
| I subscribed to Lumo for two months. Mistral models were good
| and I like the idea of a private version of GPT. However, if
| you only use it a few times a week, it's not worth the money.
| bdbdbdb wrote:
| I'm with proton on this tbh. It's not a lumo update, it's an
| attempt to tell people who don't use lumo about it's existence.
| Maybe it's not something you want to read but an email saying
| "hey, have you heard of this thing called lumo" is not something
| you'd send out to existing lumo users
| fundatus wrote:
| Over in the Proton subreddit we've been wondering if there is
| currently some kind of Anti-Proton campaign going on.
| Constantly people will loudly complain about completely benign
| things and get lot's of people agreeing with them.
| this_user wrote:
| Every time there is anything posted about Proton on HN, there
| is an immediate wave of super negative comments, none of
| which ever offer any arguments of substance. It's always just
| some vague allegations, and this has been the case for years.
| It's pretty obvious what is going on.
| anonymous908213 wrote:
| These vapid fanboy-esque comments make me significantly
| more likely to believe that Proton is astroturfing than the
| inverse that you are implying, that some unspecified actor
| is engaging in a conspiracy to impugn Proton's reputation.
| That said, if criticising Proton is indeed a paid vocation
| and you have some concrete details about where I can get
| paid for my comments daring to doubt the uncompromising
| holiness of Proton, I'm all ears.
| 7bit wrote:
| Calling it an "anti- Proton campaign" or "benign" is just
| rhetorical hand waving. Those words let you dismiss criticism
| without engaging with the substance. Proton did deliberately
| email people who opted out. That is a GDPR violation, full
| stop. They are a large, well resourced company; "oops" is not
| an excuse. Criticism over that is not hysteria or
| bandwagoning, and blaming people for speaking up instead of
| the company for breaking the rules is weak.
| fundatus wrote:
| The author says himself he opted into every Proton
| newsletter but the Lumo one. Proton (possibly accidentally)
| sends a _single_ E-Mail about Lumo in one of the other
| newsletters he has subscribed to. And it makes it onto HN
| with 200 comments? Come on.
| 7bit wrote:
| You said all of that already and I replied. If you're not
| answering to any of my arguments, I'm not going to bother
| continuing the debate.
| unethical_ban wrote:
| I thought the same thing last night when this was first
| posted. Lots of "if they can't get this right do they even
| care about users" as if a slipped-up miscategorization of a
| marketing email is the same as an oil company leaking waste
| into a river.
|
| I operate on the assumption they hold firm on their technical
| commitments of encrypted email, email obfuscation, decent VPN
| and a solid password manager.
|
| Call them out on mistakes, sure, but this blog post was
| written like a manifesto for something so minor.
| anonymous908213 wrote:
| > but an email saying "hey, have you heard of this thing called
| lumo" is not something you'd send out to existing lumo users
|
| But it is an e-mail you send out to people who have
| specifically went out of their way to indicate to you they do
| not want you e-mailing them about Lumo?
| Tepix wrote:
| I had a similar issue with Microsoft today. They obviously
| invented a new "Copilot Newsletter" and subscribed my address to
| it, without my consent.
|
| I wonder what the legislation says (I'm in Germany). I know that
| some business related mails are deemed legal, but this seems to
| clearly cross the line.
| chrisjj wrote:
| UK legislation says it is illegal. MS are serial offenders and
| the UK regulator has charged them not once.
| gingerlime wrote:
| Same. Posted a comment about it [0]. I already filed a GDPR and
| ePrivacy compliants. Happy to share notes. Contact details in
| my profile.
|
| [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46730206
| weedhopper wrote:
| Here is an interesting case of a failure of the regulations,
| I'm curious how this goes
|
| https://www.gofundme.com/f/hold-mojang-accountable-for-
| their...
| nkmnz wrote:
| Proton should pay that guy for his rage post. First time I've
| heard about Lumo, will certainly try it out!
| alphadelphi wrote:
| "Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by
| stupidity" - Robert J. Hanlon
|
| If you ever tried to setup a martech stack you konw what a PITA
| is to comply GDPR without any error
| tsylba wrote:
| This make me think of the GitHub spamming issue.
|
| See, my GitHub email is not my main address, and when I got some
| it's either from a user of one of my repository or from a
| marketing team that extracted thousand of address from starred
| repositories to fake genuine email with my name and all.
|
| The things is, it's always a less than stellar product. It
| started with NFTs, calm down for a bit and now came back with a
| vengeance with AI startups.
|
| I guess it's a number game for them but I can't comprehend their
| lack of value, same for those peoples that subscribes to everyone
| just to gain a sub back (and judging by the number, a lot of
| people sub back without thinking about it, so it works).
|
| Damn I despise that marketing-bussiness hellscape that the
| internet slowly morphed into along the years. We can't have nice
| things because there will always be a prominent proportion of us
| that would exploit it for personal gain and we would do
| collectively nothing against it, for the name of liberal economic
| or something. And forward the enshitification goes.
| aborsy wrote:
| Lumo is not end to end encrypted. The model is in some kind HSM?
| Are those trusted?
|
| If they are, I see some people might be interested.
| g947o wrote:
| When I migrated my email from Gmail, I took a careful look at
| Proton and Fastmail.
|
| Proton's very questionable design and claims around encrypted
| emails and their service offerings made me concerned, which were
| the main reasons I went with Fastmail.
|
| So far it has worked well, and I hope it stays that way.
| heikkilevanto wrote:
| Same here. Tried out Proton and Fastmail, and chose Fastmail.
| Been happy with it for a few months so far.
| alex1138 wrote:
| Proton's UX just subjectively FEELS bad
| MrFinch wrote:
| I dislike Proton's excessive marketing on privacy and encryption
| topics, especially in their posts on X, where they always claim
| that accessing the internet without a VPN is a bad thing. It
| reminds me of Crypto AG.
|
| Everyone would be happier if they just focused on good products
| instead of excessive marketing. I'm tired of seeing their privacy
| slop all the time.
| bartbutler wrote:
| Hey, Proton CTO here. There was a bug, and we fucked up. Support
| should have reported it up the chain and acknowledged this.
| Things happen, especially at scale, but we take comms consent
| seriously and will fix it.
| ivan_gammel wrote:
| Thanks for acknowledging it. Your support team misattributed
| the email to Business category. It may help to have the exact
| name of subscription category in the footer of the message.
| bartbutler wrote:
| That's not a bad idea, I'll see what people think. Note that
| clicking on the unsubscribe link will unsubscribe you to
| whatever comms preference was specified in the sending and
| tell you what it was.
| chrisjj wrote:
| Thanks. Well done.
| Washuu wrote:
| Can you fix the fact that this new email spam category was
| added and that I was automatically opted into receiving it
| without my consent? That's fucked. I'm a paying customer and I
| keep getting advertisements in the Proton desktop applications
| for various things.(Black Friday deals, other stuff.) I should
| never see these advertisements if I'm paying you.
| catoc wrote:
| Trust is maybe the most valuable commodity for a VPN provider...
| And I have the feeling Proton is gambling it away.
|
| It made me move to Mullvad.
|
| Despite the fact that in terms of performance Proton is slightly
| better. (underscoring just *how* crucial 'trust' is)
| alex1138 wrote:
| Funnily, Proton was supposed to be the anti-Google, wasn't it?
| Maybe some of "Proton's not in the US, so not subject to scary
| NSA warrant canaries"
|
| Except... Gmail has handled spam pretty well? And at least if you
| do get Spam they actually tell you:
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6090712
| Cyan488 wrote:
| Funny they mentioned the GitHub email. I got the same one and
| unsubscribed from every GitHub email immediately. I wonder if
| they track how fast people unsubscribe after opening particular
| emails.
| plagiarist wrote:
| They do. Companies will track app uninstalls also.
| eightys3v3n wrote:
| I had a similar problem with SunLife marketing emails. I would
| unsubscribe from everything there was an option for, then a month
| later I would get another marketing email setting personal
| finance advisors. I spoke to support to be told how to
| unsubscribe, then that it "was an account information email not a
| marketing email so I cauld not unsubscribe".
|
| Eventually after escalating I was put on a do not email list and
| haven't received emails since; though they do still send crap to
| my work email.
| gampleman wrote:
| I tend to have a policy: I will click on your unsubscribe
| button once, after that it's straight to 'report spam'. If that
| sinks your domain ratings, that's on you.
| eightys3v3n wrote:
| Yeah except once in a blue moon they send an email I do need
| that really is account information and all from the same
| SunLife email :/
|
| Otherwise I have the same policy.
| njhnjhnjh wrote:
| It's not an AI consent problem, it's an AI rape problem.
| aprentic wrote:
| I really hope the Proton PMs are watching this.
|
| Their main business offerings are privacy and security. The fact
| that they were able to pull customers away from Google shows that
| switching costs are low.
|
| Your reputation is your moat. If you ruin it by acting like
| Google, you're filling your own moat.
| vee-kay wrote:
| Proton's reputation is not one to be proud of.
|
| In India, the Indian government suspended VPN services in
| Jammu&Kashmir (J&K) state after a bloody terror attack (in
| Pehelgam Baisaran valley (a popular tourist spots) where 26
| tourists were gunned down in cold blood by jihadi Pakistani
| terrorists who infiltrated from across the border).
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2025_Pahalgam_attack
|
| However, Proton company has been blatantly touting its VPN
| services in J&K with the dangerous incitement to evade the
| Indian government scrutiny.
|
| This was Proton's message: "In Jammu and Kashmir, police have
| been conducting random stops and house-to-house checks
| inspecting mobile phones to enforce a local ban on VPNs. A
| reminder that Proton VPN's mobile app has a "Discreet icon"
| setting to help disguise it."
|
| https://tfipost.com/2026/01/profit-over-people-proton-vpn-ge...
|
| Such dangerous messaging was even after Proton Mail was blocked
| in India, because it was found that terrorists and perverts
| were using it for terror communications and digital sexual
| abuse.
|
| https://www.thehindu.com/news/national/karnataka/courts-cann...
|
| But Proton refused to comply with India's new cybersecuriy laws
| and investigations into such subversive activities. Instead,
| Proton removed its servers from India.
|
| https://telecom.economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/now-proton...
|
| So yeah, use Proton at your own risk.
| prussia wrote:
| Terrorist attacks and perverts are every government's excuse
| to crack down on freedom. Refusing to comply with an
| authoritarian government like India's is a plus in my book.
| matheusmoreira wrote:
| "Government scrutiny" ? What a bunch of bullshit.
|
| If anything this _enhances_ Proton 's reputation. If so
| called "terrorists and perverts" trust it to the point they
| rely on it for their own security, then it's worth serious
| consideration. Nobody wants to use cryptography that some
| indian government can subvert.
| bigyabai wrote:
| > because it was found that terrorists and perverts were
| using it for terror communications and digital sexual abuse.
|
| Lol, nondescript "terrorists and perverts" are the
| laughingstock of Western politics. Eyes roll whenever someone
| justifies drastic action on vague terrorism/perversion
| accusations: https://youtu.be/ud9zBKJJQe4
|
| _My_ bigger concern is Modi 's international reputation for
| exacerbating crime statistics to manufacture consent for
| authoritarian policy. We've seen our fair share of that here
| in America and it's not a positive influence on national
| politics. So much so that we can't trust our own email
| providers to be secure.
| crazygringo wrote:
| > _Has anyone else noticed that the AI industry can't take "no"
| for an answer? AI is being force-fed into every corner of tech._
|
| And yet this blog post is guilty of the exact same thing. It's
| just a complaint about which marketing messages get categorized
| as which newsletters you can opt in or out of (a valid complaint
| but pretty boring), but slaps "AI Consent" in the title to turn
| it into clickbait because the marketing message happens to be
| about an AI product.
|
| This spam has been a problem for decades. It didn't arise with
| AI. I haven't even noticed any uptick with AI.
| 0x1ch wrote:
| About six months ago I switched to completely self hosted email
| in Hetzner, waited the billing period to receive outbound access,
| but still use free forwarding for outbound by default. People
| always complain on forums about the struggles of self hosting,
| but outside of an occasional email I have to whitelist because of
| spam filters, it's nearly hands free (mailcow).
|
| I setup aliases for every single one of my existing protonmail
| and gmail accounts, and now have them forward to my aliases. I
| can still use my old accounts, but everything is now ran through
| my systems, my data that I control.
|
| I recommend others look at doing the same.
| r_lee wrote:
| Is anyone actually like super hyped about "Building AI Agents"
| with this and that? I wish I could get excited and just become a
| 100% AI Agwnt vibecoding all day and building AI agents to do AI
| stuff but like, I don't know?
|
| Is there a crowd that just drools whenever a new way to "Build AI
| Agwnts" or "Agentic Workflows" comes out or something?
| davidee wrote:
| I've been using proton for a year after migrating from Rackspace
| and I'm done. Not because of this article, but I might as well
| pile on:
|
| 1. I use a custom domain.
|
| Turns out that there are two competing features, not-at-all
| documented. If you use a catch-all, like I do, AND use specific
| addresses for sending, the two are incompatible to some degree.
| Which is bonkers.
|
| Example: with a catchall I can create any address I want (and I
| do). Some store wants an email for a big discount, cool, here's a
| throwaway. Buying something online, here's a throwaway.
|
| Now sometimes, I need to reply using that throwaway. Turns out in
| Proton, this triggers a gotcha. As soon as I add the throwaway
| email to my list of email addresses for sending, I enter a world
| with a limit of 10 max.
|
| That's fine, I can disable them right?
|
| Nope, it turns out if I disable them in order to add aothers,
| Proton blocks those addresses *even though I have a catch-all*.
| WHAT?? Worse, if I try to delete the addresses, Proton will also
| delete the associated messages in my Inbox/folders. Excuse me?
|
| 2. What really pushed me away: Search.
|
| Whatever proton is using under the hood is easily the worst
| search experience I've ever had from a mail product, and I use
| Thunderbird on my work machine.
|
| Notable: Proton Bridge. I get why, but it's just terrible.
|
| So many rough edges. Just not worth it.
| thejoeflow wrote:
| Isn't the search bad because they can't search email contents?
| As long as the term is somewhere in the metadata (title, sender
| email, sender name) it seems to work ok.
|
| I agree though that the user experience isn't great because of
| this limitation. You kind of have to remember what the title of
| the email was for what you're looking for. Searching for
| "flight ticket" results in mixed success
| sabellito wrote:
| They can search contents. You have to activate local indexing
| in the search UI itself.
| bl4ckneon wrote:
| You also get simplelogin for free, give that a try. Will
| probably fix your first issue
| lunarboy wrote:
| Agreed on both of these. Proton search is so dogshit.
|
| Re: the custom domain catch all reply, this is a bit annoying
| but there js a workaround. I made a SendGrid account which
| allows me like 100 sends per month, and I can reply in
| Thunderbird via SendGrid as any email account. Annoying to boot
| up Thunderbird, and I haven't found a way to do this on my
| iPhone, but I don't need ti reply from a throwaway frequently
| so it's sufficient for now.
| ink_13 wrote:
| What are you going to do instead? I am very close to moving
| from a 20-year-old GMail address to a custom domain and was
| planning to use Proton as the email host.
| nomadiccoder wrote:
| Fastmail is worth considering. Ive used it for several years
| and it just works.
| microtonal wrote:
| Downside is that their main servers are in the US, which
| may be problematic these days if you are from outside the
| US.
|
| I just moved away from Fastmail after 10+ years for this
| reason.
| whiterock wrote:
| Out of curiosity: Where did you migrate to?
| blibble wrote:
| as of this week, I've been going through the rigmarole of
| self-hosting my own email (again), for the same reason as
| you
|
| any avoidable dependency on the US has become a red line
|
| don't forget to tell fastmail that the reason you're
| leaving is because they host in the US!
|
| (I also told them if they open a DC outside the reach of
| the US regime: I be happy to become a customer again)
| stilldavid wrote:
| Seconding fastmail.
|
| I have a catch-all and can reply from any address I please.
| If I reply from an email sent to retailer@mydomain.com it
| even auto populates the "from" address for me with
| "retailer", or I can choose to reply from one of my named
| accounts. It's really slick.
| rcMgD2BwE72F wrote:
| Love this too. I just wish they were more privacy-friendly.
| matheusmoreira wrote:
| I was in your shoes a few years ago. Just move already. Don't
| worry about it. Get your own domain and point the MX records
| at literally any email service out there. If you don't like
| it you can just switch later. Just start using your own
| domain as soon as possible.
|
| It really is life changing. When you have your own domain
| switching email services is risk free since your addresses
| don't change. You can literally try out all the email
| services out there.
|
| For the record I'm a happy Proton customer. They seem to be
| the only ones who still care about PGP. I even interacted
| with them here on HN a few times.
| norgie wrote:
| I've been reasonably happy with Runbox. Decent features,
| pricing, and servers in Norway. The webmail isn't great, but
| I don't really use it. If you must have encryption, I think
| the only option is Tuta.
| amatecha wrote:
| Yeah, even when you turn on "enable local cache of emails", the
| search is still terrible.
|
| What's pretty surprising to me is that for everything they say
| about privacy etc., getting Mail Plus gives you nothing better
| than a free user in terms of VPN options. That was the case in
| their previous set of plans, too - I've been paying for Proton
| for some years now, at a cost of like $100-150/yr, and only
| ever had the same level of VPN offering from them as a free
| user, which is pretty lame.
| trvz wrote:
| Proton is frankly a bad company and this is unsurprising.
| Insanity wrote:
| I think the last line is important. Proton isn't perfect, neither
| are others. And proton is imo the best suited to my (current)
| needs.
|
| I'm a (mostly) happy paying customer for their email, and also
| use their VPN and Authenticator. My worst experience I guess is
| the Authenticator app being laggy, which is not really all that
| bad.
| esafak wrote:
| This is a user-facing bug borne of engagement-driven development
| and a lack of user empathy. When a user opts out of a category,
| he should not receive cross posts. They ought to have had checks
| for this. The user did well to bring attention to it.
| Vaslo wrote:
| Exactly the kind of whiny blogger I don't want using Proton
| products with his squeaky wheel nonsense. Move over to Tutanova
| or go back to Gmail. What a trivial thing to whine about.
| alex_young wrote:
| This is some fine wine.
|
| I want to get x, y, and z marketing email but not w.
|
| They sent me something consider w. Outrage!
| uhfraid wrote:
| This is what's called a "customer complaint" at real businesses
| with real paying customers lol
| andy wrote:
| I just signed up for proton vpn, before I read this post. So far
| so good other than this post, but I notice I can't access my own
| freshdesk help desk while on proton vpn. It says location not
| allowed.
| designerarvid wrote:
| Proton's take on marketing is the main thing making me anxious of
| commitment to their ecosystem.
|
| Other than that I'm a happy paying customer.
| mark_l_watson wrote:
| Is this even worth writing an article? In almost a decade of
| paying for Proton I have ran across two annoying bugs that
| eventually got fixed. Report bugs and be patient.
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