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Posted by groomlake 17 hours ago

Fastmail offers EU data region(www.fastmail.com)
396 points | 197 commentspage 2
daft_pink 5 hours ago|
Actually thrilled that I can choose US data residency. Apparently, it was always that way? Happy that I can choose it though as I would prefer my data not be stored somewhere else.
doener 11 hours ago||
As long as the company's legal headquarters are in the U.S., U.S. agencies have access to the data under the Cloud Act—and non-U.S. citizens have absolutely no legal recourse when it comes to U.S. services
hinata08 11 hours ago|
their HQ is supposed to be in Melbourne, Australia

They mention it only briefly in their publication. Their about page is clearer about that.

doener 1 hour ago||
Ah, thanks for the hint! Probably better than, but still Five Eyes. The legal details I‘m not aware of in this case.
greenleafone7 14 hours ago||
The article states that they do not offer any guarantee that my data will stay in the EU!

I feel that that's the whole point. And the whole point of them making this article/advertisement.

petcat 14 hours ago|
How could they possibly guarantee such a thing?

Do you only send and receive emails with people in the EU?

greenleafone7 10 hours ago|||
Your reply is dishonest. I obviously couldn't replicate the entire article, but I'm assuming everyone that reads my comment also has read the article. And so you know very well what I meant.

If you advertise foolproof safes, but they end up not in fact being exactly that very thing you advertised then I'm sure you will have a great reason as to why actually your 'foolproof' safe can not be foolproof and you never guaranteed such a thing in your tos.

But at the end of the day, you promised foolproof safes, and you did not deliver.

Your argument is "well if you leave the lock open then...". And the reply to that argument is that "yes, we all know". The fact that I the user can make a mistake, does not excuse the company from saying "well, anyway, he would have made a mistake anyway so why bother"

monsieurbanana 13 hours ago||||
At the moment all your data is still replicated in the US (they say it will change in the future, sure) and all the logs are also stored there, with no plans to change it or more details into what they contain.

As of now there's no guarantee of... anything, really.

Obviously if you decide to send an email to the US you're choosing to send your data there, that's a strawman.

preisschild 13 hours ago|||
Its not about the people you send emails to, its about who has access to your entire mailbox.

In the moment that would be the Trump Administration for example.

inigyou 6 hours ago||
Useless. US companies have to get EU citizen's data on request. They can and must do so. Only non-US companies can ignore US data requests.
hellcow 5 hours ago|
Fastmail is an Australian company.
trocado 9 hours ago||
This may not have much practical consequence, but still there's some symbolic value which is welcomed in today's geopolitical climate.
lschueller 14 hours ago||
If what you need is a guarantee that your data remains only in the EU, we don’t have that, and we’d rather tell you directly than let you assume otherwise.

Is there an alternative that really keeps data in the EU? (And not only in the sense it serves a sales promotion)

rendx 11 hours ago||
https://mailbox.org/ Germany https://posteo.de/ Germany https://runbox.com/ Norway https://www.migadu.com/ Switzerland

more: https://european-alternatives.eu/category/email-providers

crossroadsguy 5 hours ago|||
Among these runbox is quite good and my friend has used migadu for a few years and likes it even though he says the "soft" limits still make him uncomfortable even though so far he has never hit them; so I guess that should be fine. Posteo doesn't support custom domains (I've used them and otherwise they are good). I wouldn't go with Proton ever. Mailo seems new - never heard of them. Would love to get a review.

mailbox.org can be avoided if you need to send and receive emails from domains where the mail admins might not be email admin savants and/or privacy activists (sometimes that's not a choice in case of Govt services etc and you may not live in a country when you can get those changes done). Also, if you ever face an issue and send them an email, expect the reply to come in weeks (if you are lucky) and that too a flippant (sometimes even terse) nothing-mail and then if you respond the cycle repeats until you give up.

lschueller 11 hours ago|||
Splendid, thank you. the european-alternatives.eu is exactly what helped! Appreciate it!
atmosx 14 hours ago|||
Depends on the definition and your threat model but to make a very large story short; it’s email, others have copies (your gmail friends?). Metadata is public by default the body can be encrypted and encrypted at rest (comes with many limitations) and that’s the highest level of security you can realistically achieve.

If that works fine if not, use another method of comm. Email wasn’t designed to be secure.

lschueller 14 hours ago||
Thank you. Sure. In Europe the "euro stack" approach becomes more and more relevant. So, the issue is more a compliance topic in the way of making use of service provides, who are best-case "eu-headquartered", but at least with a guarantee that processing on my side stays within the european realm. Doesn't mean very little in a technical understanding of security, I agree.
vzaliva 14 hours ago||
I do not know any EU-only, but ProtonMail is in Switzerland.
petcat 14 hours ago||
Proton is leaving Switzerland because of surveillance and privacy issues.

> Because of legal uncertainty around Swiss government proposals to introduce mass surveillance — proposals that have been outlawed in the EU — Proton is moving most of its physical infrastructure out of Switzerland.

https://proton.me/blog/lumo-ai

They are moving to Germany, but will quickly find that they are going to face the same surveillance and privacy issues since the EU is in the process of negotiating a data sharing agreement under the US Cloud Act.

https://www.justice.gov/archives/opa/pr/justice-department-a...

preisschild 13 hours ago||
That was 2023 before the 2nd Trump Admin and before the Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board that was supposed to be independent and protect against abuse has resigned.
egorfine 14 hours ago||
Can't wait to verify my age before reading emails!

In all seriousness though, what are the chances Fastmail won't require KYC at some point? I have sent them a support request with that question and got a non-answer.

PS: Am a paying customer for like a decade

crossroadsguy 5 hours ago|
No one would know that other than Fastmail and regulators. But what I can say is keeping different emails for different purposes might be the way. Unless your domain also has none of your PII attached to you, neither is any of your email interactions. It's not ideal but I finally stopped fighting it and use few emails that offers both privacy and anonymity if I ever need that.
Cider9986 12 hours ago||
Jurisdiction is an outdated way of looking at things. End-to-end encryption is what actually matters. Of course, people are stupid, so it continues.
crossroadsguy 14 hours ago|
I have never understood their 50+10 GB storage as the starting plan. Anyone storing a lot of emails, please don't come at me screaming, but know that not everyone keeps every email and every attachment ever received right there in that email account (especially the attachments). For me, email is just communication i.e timed information, not data storage, except for very personal emails, and very very rare, some non-personal important emails. So some people do like to simply delete the emails they no longer need. Also their pricing almost feels like "unlimited storage" backup solutions mass pricing strategy.
tene80i 14 hours ago|
You mean why isn’t there a cheaper tier than $5/mo? Not much to be gained by offering it, I would think.
3eb7988a1663 13 hours ago||
Even at cloud prices, 50GB of storage is ~$1/month. Offering an additional tier with pathetic storage to save $0.80 or whatever is muddling the offering.

I guess they could offer a 0GB storage option that only operated as a relay?

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