protonvpn

It's important not to confuse the various Proton services. Proton Mail is considered to be a communication service, and in most countries (including Switzerland), communication services are regulated to some extent. Privacy isn't a blank check to break the law with impunity, and unless you are based 15 miles offshore in international waters, you need to comply with the law.

That being said, Swiss law is very restrictive, and there are a LOT of hurdles that one needs to jump through to get a court order. And even with a court order (and has been proved multiple times in court), there is no way to break Proton Mail's encryption. Privacy is not the same as anonymity, and due to the way the internet works, if anonymity is what you are going after, you have to exercise proper infosec and take preventive measures, such as using Tor or VPN....

And...getting to the topic of VPN. Under Swiss law, the treatment of VPNs is different. So VPNs can indeed be no-logs. No-logs VPN, is also possible in other countries as well. What makes Switzerland different, and possibly unique, is that within the current Swiss legal framework, Proton VPN also does not have forced logging obligations. So, a no-logs US VPN could for instance, get a NSL (National Security Letter) to start logging particular users, but that's not possible in Switzerland.

Finally, it's worth noting that in October 2021 (after the case you mentioned), Proton won in court against the Swiss government and as a result, email services cannot be considered telecommunications providers, and consequently are not subject to the data retention requirements imposed on telecommunications providers. You can find more details here: https://proton.me/blog/court-strengthens-email-privacy --Andy

There are indeed tons of VPNs on the market today, and there are also many things that set Proton VPN apart. Proton VPN stands out because it is open source, unlimited, and for those who don't have the means to pay, truly free (it doesn't have ads, and we don't monetize through selling user data). Unlike other VPNs, we also make heavy investments in overcoming censorship and trying to bypass internet blocks in authoritarian countries. You can find out a bit more about this work in a recent New York Times article: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/12/06/technology/russia-internet-proton-vpn.html

We do this because Proton's mission is fundamentally about defending privacy, freedom, and democracy online, and as a mission driven organization, we are willing to make investments others are not. We believe in the end, these investments leads to a more reliable and trustworthy service. For example, because we invest so heavily on making VPN work on networks facing heavy censorship, Proton VPN connections and protocols end up being more resilient, which leads to better speeds and performance, especially when network connectivity is sub-optimal.

As for your second question, Proton does have some interesting projects in the pipeline for 2023, including many interesting new features coming for our VPN, and we'll be sharing more about this in the coming months :) --Andy

Well, some governments definitely react by trying very actively to block us, when they recognize us as a challenge to their censorship.

-- Sam

We are definitely doing all we can in Turkey right now, along the lines of what we did in the past year in Russia and Iran. We are glad to see that we were able to help this week and are committed to continuing to provide free services in Turkey.

Governments do get displeased when we try to provide internet freedom against their will. Last summer, Russia made blocking Proton VPN a priority, came after us in state media, and actively launched a campaign to take down our services in Russia and this battle continues to this day. -Andy

In general (and this is quite unfortunate), there's been a global backsliding on privacy in recent years, and this development is not limited to Switzerland. We are currently fighting a new anti-privacy legislation in the UK, and also watching closely developments in the EU. You can read a bit more about this in a recent interview I gave to Wired: https://www.wired.co.uk/article/encryption-faces-an-existential-threat-in-europe

Given this context and the global trend, Switzerland isn't particularly worse in comparison. I would say, Switzerland started out better than most places, and like most places, it has gotten worse in recent years, but relatively speaking, is still better than most places at the current moment. What makes Sweden and Iceland stand out, along with Switzerland, is strong rule of law, and strong cultures of privacy, and generally strong stances on human rights, and this helps to ensure that over the long run, privacy is more likely to be protected.

For example, while there are proposals in the EU today that are contemplating weakening end-to-end encryption, no such proposals have been put forward in Switzerland. We are also encouraged by the fact that in 2021, we were able to win in court against the Swiss govt and get a ruling that strengthens privacy for email providers: https://proton.me/blog/court-strengthens-email-privacy --Andy