HN Reader

They leave for Germany, of all places. Germany is one of the European states with most arrests for posting entries on social media. I guess they will pack their stuff and move on in 1-2 years from now.

Their CEO states:

"(proton fraud detectors) are looking for certain patterns in use. And they collect clues on the dark web. For example, if you find Proton mail addresses in criminal Internet forums, the accounts behind them will be blocked."[1]

I've never participated on a "dark web" or .onion forum but I could imagine doing so for a variety of reasons ... are there not very interesting discussions occurring there ?

I would be classified as a criminal for being part of that discussion ?

Should I be retroactively classified as such for my discussions on cypherpunks in the nineties ?

[1] https://www.nzz.ch/technologie/proton-ceo-andy-yen-wer-geset...

Are they planning to payback all the Geneva cantonal and CERN money they took?

I seem to recall that one of their original selling points was that they were based in Switzerland which does not have data sharing agreements with the US under the Patriot act, unlike the EU.

Cynical view - they prefer to IPO in another market than Swiss, the real reason for the move.

I used Proton at one point, but I realized that email is inherently insecure and any cloud storage can be E2EE if you encrypt the files yourself before uploading (which you should)

It's nice to see that they're giving the finger to the Swiss government but ultimately it doesn't matter as many jurisdictions are mandating the same things.

Related. Others?

Swiss government look to undercut privacy tech stoking fear of mass surveillance - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45223231 - Sept 2025 (3 comments)

Proton begins moving hardware out of Switzerland due to proposed legislation - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44915796 - Aug 2025 (5 comments)

Proton Partially Exits Switzerland - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44669496 - July 2025 (2 comments)

Lumo: Privacy-first AI assistant - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44657556 - July 2025 (123 comments)

Proton threatens to quit Switzerland over new surveillance law - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44014808 - May 2025 (228 comments)

Tell HN: Swiss surveillance monitoring nearly everything – impact on Proton etc? - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38937352 - Jan 2024 (8 comments)

> Wir haben angefangen, unsere gesamte Infrastruktur zu kopieren. Unsere Daten befinden sich nun auf Servern sowohl in der Schweiz wie auch in Deutschland und Norwegen. Wenn nötig, können wir die Systeme in der Schweiz innerhalb von kurzer Zeit herunterfahren. Ich hoffte immer, solche Schritte nie einleiten zu müssen. Aber das Umfeld in der Schweiz ist für uns zurzeit zu unsicher. Wir hatten keine andere Wahl, als unseren Wegzug zu planen.

They started to copy the infrastructure, and the data is currently in Switzerland, Germany, and Norway. They can technically shut down the systems in Switzerland on short time. He (Andy Yen, CEO) always hoped they'd never need to take such steps, but the environment in Switzerland is too insecure for them at the moment. So they had no other choice but to plan their way out.

Rough English translation:

https://www-nzz-ch.translate.goog/technologie/proton-ceo-and...

It’s too bad you can’t just choose your location with services like this.

I want very secure email that’s US located because some of the contents are US regulated, I’m not worried about the US hacking me and I doubt if they really wanted my information I could do anytyhing to keep it from them.

I’m sure there are people that would love Switzerland.

To each their own.

... for Germany and Norway

I always believed stuff like Proton and Tutanota to pander to individuals who cared about privacy but who fell ultimately to their shiny marketing campaigns.

Anyway most people would be better served when disavowing any notion that email is secure or that VPN services operated by companies (as opposed to ones you control) are good for anything other than bypassing region locks.

Why are all European countries interested in surveillance all of a sudden in the last 3-4 years? WW3 preparations, just in case? They realized they are harboring a lot of foreign agents? Good ol’ power grab under false pretenses (ala patriot act)? Or all of the above? I hoped Switzerland would never do this, being the “perfect” country they think they are and are so proud(smug?) of being; alas here we are.

Are Germany and Norway better?