Comment by lschueller
11 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)
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
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.
Splendid, thank you. the european-alternatives.eu is exactly what helped! Appreciate it!
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.
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.
I do not know any EU-only, but ProtonMail is in Switzerland.
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...
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.