December2nd

I'm really glad you are doing this today, because I have a comment concerning your service. I had hoped to transition to ProtonMail as a safer, more viable alternative to gmail. After sending myself a lot of emails and nearly completing the transition from gmail, my account was unilaterally closed because someone, somewhere had flagged it as spam. I messaged your support team and was told (over the course of five days) that my account had been flagged as sending spam and that I couldn't do anything about it. I had only ever sent myself or my girlfriend emails, and I know for a fact that neither of us reported me. My account used my real life first and last name.

Your support team informed me that I was welcome to open a new account, but that is most definitely not the point. My personal information on your servers is irrevocably lost, with no warning whatsoever, due to third party users. This seems like a gigantic security vulnerability. Basically, if I know your ProtonMail address, I can report you enough times that your email is automatically deleted and your information lost. Let's say, for example, that Glenn Greenwald was using ProtonMail when he was communicating with Edward Snowden and someone who didn't want the information to get public reported him over and over again. You suspend the account, he contacts you but there's nothing you can do, so all the data is lost. Or let's say when PayPal froze your account due to suspicious activity, you didn't have a platform to complain and no way to get all your money back. Are you OK with user generated reports resulting in the permanent and irrevocable loss of your money or data?

Thank you, truly(!) for your response. I hate complaining about things that are beyond someone’s control but if I had gotten an answer like that originally from your support staff or the folks who monitor the abuse email inbox, I don’t think I would’ve been bothered enough to type that out anywhere. I just really appreciate someone acknowledging that it was possibly just a false positive instead of making me feel like I was automatically guilty. Thank you again!

Oh yeah that was decidedly NOT my experience. Reopening the account was never even suggested as being on the table.

Edit: Thank you for tagging me in this because I’m not sure I would’ve seen that response otherwise. I’m bothered all over again reading this, haha. I can post my email communications with them if there’s interest.

https://imgur.com/a/eNCLwVq

Here you go. I tried to remove all personal information or possible identifiers from my end and the companies end (like the personal ProtonMail username of an employee). The order is all jumbled up on my phone, but I tried to organize this in a way that makes sense.

Yeah, unfortunately there wasn't one and I don't think there will be one. Basically, my account was flagged and deleted. I exchanged emails for a few days with various individuals there, and each time they told me that my account was flagged and removed for violating the terms without a further explanation. The last one I got was from the Abuse helpdesk. They were the ones who told me I was welcome to make a new account, but warned me if I sent any more spam then they'd just remove that one too.

That was the message that really got under my skin. I tried arguing that if my problems could have been resolved by making a new account, I would have done that already. If I were really abusing their service, why would I draw attention to myself like this? I could just make a new account and continue doing it. Not to mention that I'm not sending spam using my real first and last name...I wanted my account back with my personal information still there.

The last email I sent them along these lines went unanswered and this is likely the only response I'm going to get, but I'll update if that changes.