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Proton spam and the AI consent problem

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Re: Proton spam and the AI consent problem

#191

Post by qaz_plm »

chrisjj wrote: post #160
hn111 wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Same here, I've found too many bugs in Proton's email client and instead of fixing them they just release new products. FastMail support has been great, I think the developers themselves reply (some of the?) emails, going into technical details and being actually helpful.

> FastMail support has been great Seconded, failing only when up against tricky issues like insecurity of their so-called secure Masked Email.

I’m a heavy user of masked emails from Fastmail. Can you expound on the insecurity you mentioned?

Re: Proton spam and the AI consent problem

#192

Post by arrozconcosas »

SCdF wrote: post #51
ivan_gammel wrote: post #19

I think we must make it clear that this is not related to AI at all, even if the product in question is AI-related. It is a very common problem with modern marketing teams, that have zero empathy for customers (even if they have one, they will never push back on whatever insane demands come from senior management). This is why any email subscription management interface now is as bloated as a dead whale. If too many…

I disagree: in as much as I have noticed this *far* more with AI than any other advancement / fad (depending on your opinion) than anything else before. This also tracks with every app and website injecting AI into every one of your interactions, with no way to disable it. I think the article's point about non-consent is a very apt one, and expresses why I dislike this trend so much. I left Google Workspace, as a pay…

Imagine making this argument for other technologies. There is no opt-out button for machine learning, choosing the power source for their datacenters, the coding language in their software, etc. Conceptually there is a difference between opting out of an interaction with another party vs opting out of a specific part of their technology stack.

Re: Proton spam and the AI consent problem

#193

Post by alex1138 »

g947o wrote: post #124

When I migrated my email from Gmail, I took a careful look at Proton and Fastmail. Proton's very questionable design and claims around encrypted emails and their service offerings made me concerned, which were the main reasons I went with Fastmail. So far it has worked well, and I hope it stays that way.

Proton's UX just subjectively FEELS bad

Re: Proton spam and the AI consent problem

#194

Post by arrozconcosas »

everyday7732 wrote: post #132
SCdF wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I disagree: in as much as I have noticed this *far* more with AI than any other advancement / fad (depending on your opinion) than anything else before. This also tracks with every app and website injecting AI into every one of your interactions, with no way to disable it. I think the article's point about non-consent is a very apt one, and expresses why I dislike this trend so much. I left Google Workspace, as a pay…

To add to this, it's the same attitude that they used to create the AI in the first place by using content which they don't own, without permission. Regardless of how useful it may be, the companies creating it and including it have demonstrated time and again that they do not care about consent.

How can you get a machine to have values? Humans have values because of social dynamics and education (or lack of exposure to other types of education). Computers do not have social dynamics, and it is much harder to control what they are being educated on if the answer is "everything".

Re: Proton spam and the AI consent problem

#195

Post by pzmarzly »

littlecranky67 wrote: post #57
usefulposter wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hey, that sounds like Signal! https://github.com/signalapp/Signal-iOS/issues/4590 >We're not going to remove the reminders. >If you don't want to provide that access, you still don't need to – you can simply tap remind me later once a month (See also: https://github.com/signalapp/Signal-iOS/issues/4373 , https://github.com/signalapp/Signal-iOS/issues/5809 , ...)

I get their point that you can't provide a "No" in the reminder. But there should be an option (maybe even hidden under "advanced settings - here be dragons!") for this.

Molly, the Signal fork, has exactly this feature. https://molly.im/

Re: Proton spam and the AI consent problem

#196

Post by SCdF »

arrozconcosas wrote: post #192
SCdF wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I disagree: in as much as I have noticed this *far* more with AI than any other advancement / fad (depending on your opinion) than anything else before. This also tracks with every app and website injecting AI into every one of your interactions, with no way to disable it. I think the article's point about non-consent is a very apt one, and expresses why I dislike this trend so much. I left Google Workspace, as a pay…

Imagine making this argument for other technologies. There is no opt-out button for machine learning, choosing the power source for their datacenters, the coding language in their software, etc. Conceptually there is a difference between opting out of an interaction with another party vs opting out of a specific part of their technology stack.

The three examples you listed are implementation details, so it's not clear if this is a serious post. Which datacenter they deploy code in is (other than territory for laws etc, which is something you may wish to know about and pick from) an implementation detail.

A better example would be: imagine every single operating system and app you use adds spellcheck. They only let you spell check in American[1]. You will get spell check prompts from your Operating System, your browser, and the webapp you're in. You can turn none of them off.

[1] in this example, you speak the Queen's English, so spell color colour etc

Re: Proton spam and the AI consent problem

#198

Post by weedhopper »

chrisjj wrote: post #162
ozlikethewizard wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not sure where you live, but inside the EU / UK this is rarely a problem because the companies do get fined. If youre having problems like this report them to your relevant authority. But as another commentor noted, AI bubble makes paying spam fines more worthwhile than bubble popping.

> Not sure where you live, but inside the EU / UK this is rarely a problem because the companies do get fined. Here in UK is is a frequent problem and companies rarely get fined e.g. MS never.

True, microslop has a record of breaking GDPR and changing ToS without notifying users and looks like they are free to do so.

Re: Proton spam and the AI consent problem

#199

Post by 7bit »

fundatus wrote: post #85
bdbdbdb wrote: post #82

I'm with proton on this tbh. It's not a lumo update, it's an attempt to tell people who don't use lumo about it's existence. Maybe it's not something you want to read but an email saying "hey, have you heard of this thing called lumo" is not something you'd send out to existing lumo users

Over in the Proton subreddit we've been wondering if there is currently some kind of Anti-Proton campaign going on. Constantly people will loudly complain about completely benign things and get lot's of people agreeing with them.

Calling it an "anti- Proton campaign" or "benign" is just rhetorical hand waving. Those words let you dismiss criticism without engaging with the substance. Proton did deliberately email people who opted out. That is a GDPR violation, full stop. They are a large, well resourced company; "oops" is not an excuse. Criticism over that is not hysteria or bandwagoning, and blaming people for speaking up instead of the company for breaking the rules is weak.

Re: Proton spam and the AI consent problem

#200

Post by pixl97 »

setopt wrote: post #77
bayindirh wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I believe this is combined with something I call "asymmetry blindness". They may say "but we send an single e-mail per month, this can't be bad". We the users get a barrage of e-mails everyday because every marketing team is thinking we only get their mail, and it makes our lonely and cold mailbox merrier. No, users are in constant "Tsunami warning!" mode and these teams are not helping.

Indeed. I received 28 unwanted emails of this kind in January so far (just counted), which is a bit more than once per day, despite quite avidly unsubscribing from this kind of emails. This month I had to unsubscribe from ChatGPT and GitHub emails of this kind too, although I don’t recall opting in to them in the first place and neither of them spammed me until recently.

>unsubscribe from ChatGPT emails

Really? I've never got a spam from them. Hell, I just searched and I'm not really seeing anything from them after the point where I signed up.

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