Possible but extreme situation
Proton VPN doesn’t log IP but ISP can log them. Proton Mail logs IP if the law permits. Now it isn’t easy to find the missing piece of puzzle?
Proton has plus plans for mail, VPN, drive and pass. We can have more flexibility if its possible to club two plus plans instead of paying for unlimited.
ISP already knows your IP, they allot it after all.
You are misunderstanding what VPN does. When connected to a VPN, your web requests look like this (simplified):
You > ISP > VPN > Internet
So the ISP can only see you connect to the VPN (and not even that if you use stealth and your ISP doesn’t so DPI).
So in ProtonMail case, your flow would be:
You > ISP > ProtonVPN > ProtonMail
The ISP would know you connected to ProtonVPN. ProtonMail will know ProtonVPN IP connected to it.
So your ISP knows your IP and your connection to VPN, but not your connection to Mail, and Mail knows your ProtonVPN IP but not your personal IP. So Mail can only log your ProtonVPN IP, and your ISP can only log your personal IP and connection to ProtonVPN. Since ProtonVPM cannot be forced to log your IP or activity, there is no way to correlate the activities on Mail and VPN to trace them back to you.
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This is the process flow illustrated everwhere.
Disclaimer: The below details may be wrong. Feel free to speak up if there are any inaccuracies.
I used opensnitch to check this.
While connecting to VPN opensnitch shows outgoing connection to say 192.0.1.1. After VPN is connected the IP shown in VPN app and IP leaks website is 192.0.1.3. So the above flow would be
You > ISP > ProtonVPN server (192.0.1.1) > ProtonVPN Internal IP (192.0.1.3) > ProtonMail
So ISP can see connection to ProtonVPN server, cannot see ProtonVPN Internal IP and activities in ProtonMail. ProtonMail can see nothing more than ProtonVPN Internal IP.
This, IMHO, is legally untested at best when it comes to connecting to Proton Mail.
A mail provider that’s required to log IPs saying oh, we can’t log because we put our own VPN in front of the servers isn’t something I think will hold up. That would be quite a loophole for any provider.
I think when Proton tries this the response they’ll get is that they need to log the IP address at the edge of their infrastructure, and their infrastructure pretty clearly includes ProtonVPN.
If you use a VPN other than ProtonVPN with Proton Mail then you should be good, obviously in that case Proton would have no way of knowing your IP.
And if you use ProtonVPN to connect to something other than Proton’s services, I agree Proton couldn’t be forced to log in that case.
It’s important to note that Proton disagrees with me here, and thinks using Proton VPN with ProtonMail would legally protect you. I am also not a lawyer.
Up to you if you want to take the risk.
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If I’m understanding it correctly, your analysis seems to agree that combining information from ISP and information from legal requests to ProtonVPN would not be able to actually compromise anything.
As far as the internal IP goes, it’s just load balancing and server selection. Thanks for looking into this for your own confirmation, this is exactly how you should treat information on the internet that is easily tested - Testing it directly if possible.
I disagree. I have worked extensively with Swiss orgs, and follow their legal rulings closely. There is no legal way to get ProtonVPN to be forced to log IP, and no legal way to secretly sabotage this. Switzerland is not the US, and NSLs don’t exist. A lot of swiss orgs agree, and Proton has also litigated successfully under Swiss law before (though that was for data retention on email rather than VPN). It’s the same ruling that helps Threema operate privately.
Unless you have evidence, it’s just speculation. And speculation that damages credibility of legitimate projects and orgs is FUD.
This is again a common confusion. Proton is not a monolith, they have services with different policies, obligations, and infrastructure. The services merely share the same provider.
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Tested this with another VPN too. Thats the nearest conclusion I can reach. Search engines were not useful based on my search. AI responses were hallucinated but all the responses were either this or this.
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Dark Patterns
Yes, it’s a very common presentation indeed. But it’s misleading, because they clearly want people to focus on the monthly cost and not the yearly cost, when they will be paying the latter. To me, that’s a dark pattern.
It would be very easy for Proton and other companies to be more upfront and emphasize the yearly cost. There’s a reason why they don’t do it, even though both prices (monthly and yearly) are visible, though one more than the other.
Discounts
In regard to discounts, it’s my understanding that if you got one for your current subscription, you are not eligible for a new one, unless it’s for a different product. So if you got a discount for Proton Mail Plus last year, you can still get one for Proton Unlimited.
Although I imagine that most people are happy with the Proton Unlimited discounts, I am personally weary of them. Because, although they are sometimes affordable, I always do the math of how much they will cost after they expire, and it’s clear that it’s too expensive for me. Hence, why I never bite.
Of course, if you get a discount for a 1 or 2 year subscription, it gives you time to find the money for when you’ll be charged at regular price. Still, when it comes to Proton unlimited, unless I’m sure I can afford the regular price, I won’t go for the discount,
I personally wish Proton did lifetime discounts. They’ve only done it once, for Proton Pass, but I suspect that it’s only because it was a new product. I doubt they’ll do it again.
There are privacy products that I’m only able to afford because I have a lifetime discount. I don’t think Proton is that affordable, but even it I thought it was, subscriptions add up. If I’m paying 10 $40/year subscriptions, that is a lot!
Proton is amazing for the casual privacy aware users.
The pros know that is always better to “decentralize” their tools selections.
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The pros know it’s best to use the best tool for their specific situation. That’s why there’s a guide on threat modeling.
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Thank you for your response @jonah. Seems it’s not totally outside the realms of possibility that – whether Proton can be forced to or not – they may have the means to determine (and store) the actual IP addresses of Proton Mail users who are using Proton VPN (without Tor).
Probably nothing for the vast majority of people to be hugely concerned about, but it’s a potential risk some adverse users may wish to consider.
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Of course it’s not outside the realm of possibility. Anything with a non-zero probability is.
Is PG fine with speculation without sources on the forum @jonah ? Because then I can start my thread on PG being a honeypot just because I think it is “not beyond the realms of possibility” 
Ridiculous drop in quality of discourse ngl. I’m out of this thread lol.
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Well, I (and Privacy Guides) always advocate for “technical” guarantees over “policy” guarantees. If Proton controls your network infrastructure from end to end, I think it’s fair to simply point out that you’re not protected from them attacking your network.
Proton generally agrees, which is why they say:
While we continue to push the legal and policy frameworks in our community’s interest, ultimately, the best protection we can provide users is through the laws of mathematics, which are unyielding and unchanging. Today, the privacy by default provided by Proton’s products is derived primarily from our usage of zero-access encryption and end-to-end encryption.
It’s plainly obvious that these protections are not the protections Proton VPN provides.
I think that VPNs are largely misunderstood tools, and that people should not grow accustomed to relying on them in situations where they aren’t suitable. VPN marketing already makes this far too confusing to consumers.
The difference between this situation and the hypothetical thread you proposed is that you would be saying PG actually is, which is not an evidence-based opinion, so to answer your question no it would not be allowed.
On the other hand, threads merely suggesting how PG could improve its trust and recommendations are frequently had here and are of course allowed.
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No need to get so upset about it. Merely a discussion, and Johah makes a good point.
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You just source and say law can change…
In that case it doesn’t matter if the laws change to log IPs in Switzerland or in the country of your VPN…and with that, using another VPN burdens the same theoretical risk…
If privacy laws change I have no doubt you would hear about it here.
Regardless, it was not a legal concern that was queried (and we have gone way off topic). I asked whether using Proton’s VPN along with their suite of products should be a privacy concern. Seemingly there could be an issue, perhaps one that is negligible for most, but it’s up to individuals to make their own decision on whether they want to accept any risk once it is highlighted to them.