In the early days when Proton started, we often received a question along the lines of “I love the product and what Proton stands for, but how do I know you will still be around to protect my data 10 years from now?” 

Ten years and 100 million accounts later, we would like to think we have proven the point with our track record, but actually the question is just as relevant today as it was 10 years ago when Proton was still supported by donations. The continual demise of newer upstarts promising to be privacy-first like Proton (for instance, this one and this one) certainly keeps the question relevant, even if Proton is in many ways in a league of its own. 

So instead of saying “We’ve made it for 10 years so don’t worry about the next 10 years”, here are some factors we think make Proton more resilient than other companies in this space. 

Mission and purpose

Proton is not a product of Silicon Valley but a crowdfunded project conceived at CERN (the European Organization for Nuclear Research). Proton was not created to get rich (if you want to get rich, you don’t go to work at CERN) but rather to address the important societal problem of surveillance capitalism. From the start, Proton has always been about the mission and putting people ahead of profits. The goal is not to raise endless rounds of VC funding at dizzying valuations, and there is no price at which we would compromise our integrity. 

Frankly speaking, Proton already has scale with over 400 employees and over 100 million accounts, so if the goal was to sell for a bunch of money, we could have done that long ago. We need not have bothered with doing any of the things listed on this page, much less give away over $2.7 million to aligned organizations. Proton’s team has been through a decade of brutally difficult work, with daunting and unprecedented challenges every step of the way. Only the true believers can stay on the path for so long. 

People matter, and to this day Proton continues to be managed and run by scientists, and our values endure. Most businesses are built to be sold — we built Proton to serve the mission.

Revenues and funding

Proton is a very rare tech company that has managed to achieve scale but today does not have any venture capital investors. This gives us an unparalleled ability to put user interests first without being beholden to financially driven investors. We cannot be forced to sell ourselves, forced to deliver higher profits, or forced to seek sources of revenue that don’t align with our mission. 

While Proton is not profit-driven, and we are strong believers in long-term financial sustainability. We are not billionaire subsidized, government subsidized, or even donation subsidized. Rather, we derive almost all of our revenues from selling services directly to users in a profitable way. Proton services are never going to be the cheapest, we’re not going to have flashy promotions, unlimited “lifetime” plans (unless it’s for charity), or offers that are too good to be true. Not just because it doesn’t suit us, but because it doesn’t suit the mission. 

Instead, we will charge a fair price that reflects our costs and can deliver long-term stability. The benefit of this should not be overlooked in an era where software companies are raising prices 20% year over year. Proton’s prices have not increased in 10 years, despite offering many more features, so you have predictability in what you will pay year over year. And when our costs go down, because we don’t have VC shareholders with specific financial requirements, we can actually pass those savings on to you. 

Technological independence and expertise

We have already talked about sustaining our values and financial sustainability, but technological sustainability cannot be overlooked. Proton owns all our servers and network equipment, acts as our own internet service provider, and doesn’t rely upon any third-party cloud providers (no Google Cloud, AWS, Microsoft Azure, etc.). Our data centers are located in multiple countries (Switzerland, Germany, and Norway), our server hardware is provided by multiple suppliers, as is the electricity that runs into our data centers, with the goal of eliminating all single points of external dependency. This approach is almost unheard of for tech companies in the past 20 years, but we learned early on that the only people we can rely upon to safeguard the mission are ourselves. 

The investments required to take this approach are massive, but they ensure we are protected against third-party risks. AWS suddenly raising prices won’t tank our sustainable business model because we are in much better control over our direct costs. The same goes for core technology and expertise. We maintain our own encryption libraries, employ our own cryptographers, and build and maintain our entire stack in-house, from the physical hardware all the way to the front-end software. This comes at much higher cost, but allows us to better react to any unexpected situations. There is very little software (or hardware) run at Proton today where we do not have our own in-house experts who can fix it if something goes wrong. 

These investments have tradeoffs for sure. Money that we spend here is not being spent on new features, slick UIs, or shiny marketing campaigns, but in exchange, it makes Proton a highly resilient survivor, in the best possible position to confront the challenges of today and tomorrow. 

Community

Finally, Proton has you. Whether it is translating our products into dozens of languages, auditing the security of our code, suggesting features, beta testing new products and features, or just helping us spread the word, your support helps us go faster and further, and overcome any challenges. As long as there’s this community of people supporting our work, we’re not going anywhere. In fact, the ideas and values we share together may even win the future of the web. For that reason, we’re eternally grateful for your support as we fight the hard fights.

Maybe you’re tired of juggling multiple email accounts. Or perhaps you’re concerned about how companies are angling for new ways to exploit your data for profit. 

With Microsoft’s rollout of the new Outlook for Windows, it appears the company has transformed its email app into a surveillance tool for targeted advertising.

Everyone talks about the privacy-washing campaigns of Google and Apple as they mine your online data to generate advertising revenue. But now it looks like Outlook is no longer simply an email service; it’s a data collection mechanism for Microsoft’s 772 external partners and an ad delivery system for Microsoft itself.

Here’s how and why.

Microsoft shares your data with 772 third parties 

Some European users who download the new Outlook for Windows will encounter a modal with a troubling disclosure about how Microsoft and several hundred third parties process their data: 

The window informs users that Microsoft and those 772 third parties use their data for a number of purposes, including to: 

• Store and/or access information on the user’s device
• Develop and improve products
• Personalize ads and content
• Measure ads and content
• Derive audience insights
• Obtain precise geolocation data
• Identify users through device scanning

This latest version of Outlook confirms that more of Big Tech’s profit margins are becoming ever more dependent on the collection of your personal data. Outlook also prompts you to choose how ads look on your screen, making it clear that advertising is a key part of the deal.

Mac users logged into the new Outlook will even encounter ads that appear as inbox messages. Some ads are for Microsoft applications while others come from third-parties selling products. 

Microsoft’s “Advertising Partners”

Thanks to the EU’s General Data Protection Regulation, Europeans are at least informed that a small village of third parties will be able to look at their data. Americans, thanks to their government’s refusal to pass privacy legislation, are never even informed this is happening.

In Outlook settings, UK users can explore a “List of Advertising Partners,” which shows the disturbing number of ad companies working with Microsoft. These third-party companies – called partners – carry names such as “ADMAX” and “ADSOCY.” This is unavailable in the settings for user in the US and Switzerland.

To some extent, the new Outlook lets you choose how your data is used, but it’s not as simple as clicking a single toggle.

“Depending on the type of data they collect, use, and process and other factors including privacy by design, certain partners rely on your consent while others require you to opt-out,” reads the preferences page for users in the UK. “Click on each advertising company listed below to view their privacy policy and exercise your choices.”

Not every partner has the same rules. Users can read each individual privacy policy before deciding, but reading is not required.

Such policies are usually long, rambling, and notoriously difficult to understand. But for many companies, that’s the idea. Such policies are intentionally written this way to give companies the maximum freedom to do what they want with your data. That often means selling your personal details to third-party advertisers and data brokers while making it difficult for you to opt out.

With the new Outlook, Microsoft forces users to enter maze-like privacy statements to seize back some control of their data. Of course, Microsoft knows that almost no one reads privacy policies. If everyone understood those policies, revenue would be jeopardized. 

New Outlook steals your email password

Microsoft’s integration of Outlook with cloud services has raised privacy alarm bells.

When you sync third-party email accounts from services like Yahoo or Gmail with the new Outlook, you risk granting Microsoft access to the IMAP and SMTP credentials, emails, contacts, and events associated with those accounts, according to the German IT blog Heise Online.

“Although Microsoft explains that it is possible to switch back to the previous apps at any time, the data will already be stored by the company,” Heise reported. “This allows Microsoft to read the emails.”

You can’t use the new Outlook without syncing all this information with Microsoft Cloud — there is only the option to cancel, according to the developers’ forum XDA. It is also configured to send login details – including usernames and passwords – directly to Microsoft servers. 

Although this transfer is secured with Transport Layer Security (TLS), according to Heise Online, your IMAP and SMTP username and password are transmitted to Microsoft in plain text. XDA was able to show their test credentials for a third-party email service provider on Microsoft’s servers. 

Microsoft is enabling itself to access your email account at any time without your knowledge, allowing it to scan and analyze your emails — and share them with third parties.

To users unaware of the privacy implications, using the new Outlook may seem harmless. But what it could mean is welcoming Microsoft into your data vault and giving them complete freedom to potentially use it however they want.

Professor Ulrich Kelber, the Federal Commissioner for Data Protection and Freedom of Information of Germany, expressed concern about the data capabilities of the new Outlook. He announced on Mastodon his intention to request a report from the Irish Data Protection Commissioner, which is responsible for ensuring companies like Microsoft uphold data protection and privacy standards.

Microsoft has not issued a public response to criticisms about its latest data grab. But the software giant has been upfront about its push to use targeted advertising to reach new revenue heights. In 2021, Microsoft Advertising earned $10 billion. But Microsoft wants to double that total.

What kind of data does Microsoft collect? 

Per its advertising policy, Microsoft does not use personal data from emails, chats, or documents to target ads. But the ads that pop up may be selected based on other data that gave the company insight about you – such as “your interests and favorites, your location, your transactions, how you use our products, your search queries, or the content you view.”

A deeper dive into Microsoft’s privacy policy shows what personal data it may extract:

• Name and contact data
• Passwords
• Demographic data
• Payment data
• Subscription and licensing data
• Search queries
• Device and usage data
• Error reports and performance data
• Voice data
• Text, inking, and typing data
• Images
• Location data
• Content
• Feedback and ratings
• Traffic data

The policy offers a glimpse of where your data might end up:

• Service providers
• User-directed entities
• Payment processing providers
• Third parties that perform online advertising services for Microsoft

Microsoft steers toward data dollars

When Google rolled out a privacy policy expanding its powers to collect data, the company drew criticisms from regulators and rivals, including Microsoft, which took out full-page newspaper ads telling Google users that Google did not respect their privacy.

A short time later, however, Microsoft unveiled a privacy policy allowing it to use personal information to sell targeted advertising, moving aggressively in a direction it once decried.

Microsoft has since made significant moves toward surveillance revenue, following in the footsteps of Google, Facebook, and, most recently, Apple. Like other Big Tech companies, Microsoft recognized a chance to generate large revenue streams by collecting and analyzing user data. This data-centric mindset has been part of a larger trend of established companies vying for a slice of the surveillance cash pie.

The appointment of Satya Nadella as CEO in 2014 marked a turning point for Microsoft, which faced scrutiny that same year after admitting to reading emails from a journalist’s Hotmail account, forcing the company to tighten its privacy policy.

Within three months of taking the job, Nadella released a study from a market intelligence firm that concluded “companies taking advantage of their data have the potential to raise an additional $1.6 trillion in revenues over companies that don’t,” wrote author Shoshana Zuboff in her book, The Age of Surveillance Capitalism.

Key developments that followed included the Bing search engine and the digital assistant Cortana, both designed to capture and analyze user data. The release of Windows 10 in 2015 further underscored Microsoft’s commitment to this new direction. Scrutiny from the privacy community was swift.

Windows 10 “is currently a privacy morass in dire need of reform,” wrote software engineer David Auerbach in Slate, describing how the new operating system, “gives itself the right to pass loads of your data to Microsoft’s servers, use your bandwidth for Microsoft’s own purposes, and profile your Windows usage.”

Microsoft’s pivot toward advertising continued with its 2021 purchase of Xandr, but then it decided that it wanted to capitalize on the captive user base its walled garden created and shifted its focus to show first-party ads in its services. 

Given this direction, Outlook’s new form makes a certain sort of sense.

In a 2022 interview with Business Insider, Rob Wilk, Microsoft’s head of advertising, talked of opportunities with properties like Xbox, which includes a console business as well as logged-in accounts – “just one of the areas we’re going to play in,” he said.

“Imagine a world, not too far off, where all of these pieces are stitched together to make a cleaner, clearer offering for our advertisers,” Wilk said. “And, don’t forget, we’ve also got browsing information and data across gaming and the Microsoft Windows business with billions of users – this gives us a unique advantage to understand intent.”

Wilk dubbed Microsoft’s advertising push a “newfound religion.”

Surveillance in the name of profit 

Microsoft claims that collecting your data is “to provide you rich, interactive experiences.”

Yet in the realm of Big Tech, advertising and ad revenue have become ends in themselves, justifying a business model based on the surveillance of your private data in the name of profit.

With this rollout of the new Outlook as a data collection and ad delivery service, Microsoft has revealed itself to be no different than the Googles and Metas of the world. For those companies to make privacy the default would mean losing the revenue they have become addicted to. 

There are other business models out there deployed by companies that focus first and foremost on online security and privacy.

Proton is one of them. 

Switch to real privacy

Proton uses end-to-end encryption to protect your emails, calendar, files stored in the cloud, passwords and login credentials, and your internet connection. Our security architecture is designed to keep your data invisible even to us, as our business model gives you more privacy, not less.

Proton provides free and open-source technology to expand access to privacy, security and freedom online. But you can always upgrade to paid plans to access extra features, allowing you to pay with money rather than sensitive data.

And Proton makes it easy to switch to our platform. In a few easy steps, you can migrate to an email service you can trust.

We believe in building an internet that works for people and not just for profit. The privacy washing companies like Microsoft and Google routinely perform in the name of revenue is just one more obstacle to a better internet where privacy is the default.

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