this post was submitted on 25 Feb 2025
1042 points (95.0% liked)

Buy European

4687 readers
936 users here now

Overview:

The community to discuss buying European goods and services.


Matrix Chat


Rules:

  • Be kind to each other, and argue in good faith. No direct insults nor disrespectful and condescending comments.

  • Do not use this community to promote Nationalism/Euronationalism. This community is for discussing European products/services and news related to that. For other topics the following might be of interest:

  • Include a disclaimer at the bottom of the post if you're affiliated with the recommendation.

  • No russian suggestions.

Feddit.uk's instance rules apply:

  • No racism, sexism, homophobia, transphobia or xenophobia
  • No incitement of violence or promotion of violent ideologies
  • No harassment, dogpiling or doxxing of other users
  • Do not share intentionally false or misleading information
  • Do not spam or abuse network features.
  • Alt accounts are permitted, but all accounts must list each other in their bios.

Benefits of Buying Local:

local investment, job creation, innovation, increased competition, more redundancy.

European Instances

Lemmy:

Matrix:


Related Communities:

Buy Local:

Continents:

European

Buying and Selling:

Boycott:

Countries:

Companies:

Stop Publisher Kill Switch in Games Practice:


Banner credits: BYTEAlliance


founded 2 months ago
MODERATORS
 
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[โ€“] DoucheBagMcSwag@lemmy.dbzer0.com 10 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (2 children)

L for Proton mention.

CEO is fascist loving boot licker

Edit: company rescinded statement Andy Ten Yen made

[โ€“] blueeggsandyam@lemmy.world 7 points 1 month ago (2 children)

Fastmail is a good non US alternative. Based in Australia.

For those that donโ€™t know about Proton. Proton CEO said โ€œ10 years ago, Republicans were the party of big business and Dems stood for the little guys, but today the tables have completely turned.โ€ The company then doubled down on a Reddit post which it eventually deleted.

You have to be blind or a liar to look at what the Republicans have done in the last 10 years and think they pro little guy.

Despite claiming political neutrality, Proton later issued a statement reiterating its support for stronger antitrust measures, particularly against Big Tech. The company noted that regardless of broader political views on the Republican platform, the appointment of Gail Slater as head of the Justice Departmentโ€™s antitrust division under Donald Trump was a positive step.

So they donโ€™t care how bad the government is as long as it helps them. So not a Nazi but willing to support them if they can get something out of it. Furthermore it is also not true. The US under Trump has threatened Europe multiple times to defend big Tech.

Proton further argued that major tech companies were attempting to align with Trump because his administration posed an โ€œunprecedented challenge to their monopolistic dominance.โ€ This statement only fueled concerns that Proton was leaning politically despite its claims of neutrality.

They donโ€™t seem to understand what politically neutral is. Also if you wanted a president that went after big tech, Biden did way more than Trump:

Under President Biden, the DOJ and FTC have taken a more aggressive approach to antitrust enforcement. ย 

The Justice Department filed another suit against Google over its dominance in the advertising technology space and sued Apple for allegedly monopolizing the smartphone market. ย 

Bidenโ€™s FTC also sued Amazon for antitrust violations, accusing the e-commerce giant of engaging in anticompetitive behavior to dominate the online retail space.

Proton also lied about logging user data.

In 2021, Proton Mail admitted to handing over a userโ€™s IP address to Swiss authorities following a request from French law enforcement via Europol. This revelation contradicted Protonโ€™s earlier claims that it did not log user data.

Yikes that's worse than I thought

[โ€“] sudneo@lemm.ee 3 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (1 children)

You seem to simply disagree with him on "going after big tech" when it comes to antitrust. The guy also mentioned why he thinks democrats are a lost cause in the antitrust space.

So they donโ€™t care how bad the government is as long as it helps them

This is a complete non sequitur from the previous paragraph. The reasonable conclusion is that they (or better, HE) don't care if it's a republican or a Democrat pushing for antitrust enforcement. They didn't endorse the government, they didn't campaign for them, they praised that pick, and if it is a good pick why shouldn't them? Everyone benefits from big tech monopolies being broken up.

Now, we might disagree with his opinion, I personally think it was naive and overly optimistic, but having an opinion like that is completely legitimate.

Proton also lied about logging user data.

False. What they did was 100% expected by any company. They have been forced to log that particular user data, because complying with laws is a requirement to run a business. Not logging data is not a control that cannot be implemented in a way that can't be reverted. They had to be forced to log user data because they didn't, which proves exactly the opposite of what you are claiming.

If you want to take it up with someone here, take it up with governments who abuse antiterrorism laws. Any company in any jurisdiction could be forced to do the same.

Same for the case where they handed out the recovery email address of that user. 100% expected and a great proof of how little data they have about users.

Edit: For completeness here is an article from someone who went through past history (words and actions) for Proton https://medium.com/@ovenplayer/does-proton-really-support-trump-a-deeper-analysis-and-surprising-findings-aed4fee4305e

[โ€“] blind3rdeye@lemm.ee 1 points 1 month ago (1 children)

We can argue about the nuances of the reasoning; but the crux of the matter is that the CEO posted a statement that praised Trump and criticized the Democrats; and the followed up with an "official Proton position" which doubled down - again praising the Republican party and criticizing the Democrats.

This cannot be described as 'politically neutral', regardless of what reasoning or opinions underpin it.

[โ€“] sudneo@lemm.ee 1 points 1 month ago

They have never been politically neutral when it comes to antitrust and privacy (well, antitrust has direct implication for privacy). They spell that out as the exception quite clearly, an thankfully they are not. In this context, praising Trump and/or criticizing democrats in this context is A-okay for me. I did not have a problem even with that being their official position, TBH, but I can agree that it was a poor decision.

They did similar posts in the past, see https://proton.me/blog/trump-controls-nsa-fbi or even similarly political content like this. Additionally, most of the orgs they donate to are clearly politically aligned.

So I genuinely don't see the problem in them having a clear position on antitrust, even if it happens to praise trump or republicans.

[โ€“] Saleh@feddit.org 5 points 1 month ago (1 children)

I am still waiting for anyone to give actual evidence for that. Stating on twitter that the Democrats were unwilling to even listen to their concerns, while the Republicans were willing to meet, seems to be quite far from bootlicking imo.

The whole outrage seemed to be engineered in the same way there were people claiming Proton would be a CIA assets, but never providing any lead, not even some obscure untrustworthy website making such a claim.

[โ€“] DoucheBagMcSwag@lemmy.dbzer0.com 5 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago)

Looks like the company officially recinded the statement Andy Yen made. Posted text to avoid Xitter link

Tap for spoilerWe want to clarify that Proton's CEO did not endorse Trump, only the Republican nominee for antitrust. Nevertheless, we have retracted the statement, which was put out by mistake due to an internal miscommunication. For further information, you can also see this Reddit thread that contains an analysis of why many believe that Proton and our CEO are not supporting any party:

https://old.reddit.com/r/Anarchism/comments/1id5v21/does_proton_really_support_trump)

Proton is not controlled by any single person, but by the non profit Proton Foundation which has neutrality in its governing principles and we remain committed to the neutrality principle. The Proton Foundation is also legally obligated in its charter to defend freedom and democracy.