Why doesn’t Proton strongly encourage paying anonymously like some services and do they log more data than others? Is this concerning for you?

[PurpleDime]

@Quantum

being actually anonymous is extremely difficult and easily compromised by any slight mistake. Going through the effort of paying for proton mail anonymously is likely not worth the effort for 99% of users as something else they are doing or failing to do will eventually compromise their identity anyway.

Even so. Defaults matter. Proton understands this. And there are many things they can easily do to make it harder for users to be identifiable without breaking any laws. You won’t have perfect anonymity, but you’ll be harder to identify.

@PurpleDime

Proton should follow Posteo’s example.

In 2009, Posteo found a way to anonymize credit card payments so that your credit card payment is not actually linked to your account or any account. I don’t see why Proton can’t do the same. Or why they didn’t start doing that from the very beginning since Proton Mail launched 5 years after Posteo implemented this infrastructure, in 2014.

Moreover, Proton can change their defaults. When you’re about to pay for a service, Proton can make it so that the first payment option presented to you, the one that is checked, is a gift card or cash, with a little note explaining why. It doesn’t hide or remove the option to pay directly with credit card. It just presents you with a default that is more private.

@NatureFriends make a valid point.

See the thread linked above for more suggestions.