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Proton spam and the AI consent problem

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Re: Proton spam and the AI consent problem

#271

Post by Terr_ »

PaulHoule wrote: post #174
TeMPOraL wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a desperate attempt at staying relevant, even if most of those companies don't realize it yet. Because of its general-purpose nature, AI subsumes products . Most software products that try to "implement AI in every corner" would, from the user's POV, be more useful if they became tools for ChatGPT/Claude/Gemini. People's goals are rarely limited to just one software product, and products are basically defined as…

AI is the first path out of enshittification the industry has had in a while. See https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2026/01/ebay-... It will be funny to see the rapid about face.

> AI is the first path out of enshittification the industry has had in a while.

Even reading the link, I don't see one gets to that conclusion.

It doesn't change the power dynamic as much as it gives new ways for monopolies and rentiers to exploit it.

Re: Proton spam and the AI consent problem

#272

Post by parliament32 »

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…

The shift from "you just don't understand" to damage control would be funny if it wasn't so transparent.

> We have identified a bug in our system... we take communication consent very seriously

> There was a bug, and we fucked up... we take comms consent seriously

These two actors were clearly coached into the same narrative. I also absolutely don't believe them at all: some PM made the conscious decision to bypass user preferences to increase some KPI that pleases some AI-invested stakeholder.

Re: Proton spam and the AI consent problem

#273

Post by tzs »

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…

> 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

Isn't that because most of the other advancements/fads were not as widely applicable?

With earlier things there was usually only particular kinds of sites or products where they would be useful. You'd still get some people trying to put them in places they made no sense, but most of the places they made no sense stayed untouched.

With AI, if well done, it would be useful nearly everywhere. It might not be well done enough yet for some of the places people are putting it so ends up being annoying, but that's a problem of them being premature, not a problem of them wanting to put AI somewhere it makes no sense.

There have been previous advancements that were useful nearly everywhere, such as the internet or the microcomputer, but they started out with limited availability and took many years to become widely available so they were more like several smaller advancements/fads in series rather than one big one like AI.

Re: Proton spam and the AI consent problem

#275

Post by cheschire »

Night_Thastus wrote: post #244
unethical_ban wrote: post #217

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Y'all are wild. I have most of their emails turned on and barely think about Proton's comms. Rarely get one, briefly skim if I do.

Yeah, I've always been surprised at how negative HN can get about Proton. They're not perfect, but man at least they're trying to fight the privacy fight. I've always had a very good experience with them. It's cheap, fast and their spam filter works well. Maybe 1x-2x a year I get an email from them about some promotion but that's it.

I always wondered if it’s just a few actually upset customers mixed with a ton of astroturfing by competitors pretending to be outraged proton customers.

Re: Proton spam and the AI consent problem

#277

Post by saghm »

chrisjj wrote: post #150
shantnutiwari wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I think we must make it clear that this is not related to AI at all Yeah, many companies do that. I unsusbcribed from newline, they still keep spamming me. Funny thing is, they realised they had made a mistake and promised to remove unsubs. One week later, the spam started. The correct solution is the spam button. Always

The spam button risks false positives.

It's not a false positive to classify a company as a bad actor and move their emails to the spam folder if they refuse to respect user choices. If anything, I wish it would happen more often and at a massive scale, because then maybe companies would have an incentive to stop being so hostile around this.

Re: Proton spam and the AI consent problem

#278

Post by bigstrat2003 »

causalscience wrote: post #261
throwaway173738 wrote: post #187

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The thing is that accounts get cracked because of reuse all the time. Whereas they seldom if at all get cracked because they’re in a password manager.

That's why I don't do either of those.

Good for you. The rest of us mortals who can't memorize dozens of unique complex passwords need to use a password manager.

Re: Proton spam and the AI consent problem

#279

Post by qaz_plm »

chrisjj wrote: post #246
qaz_plm wrote: post #191

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

"WARNING: Fastmail Masked Email insecurity" https://www.emaildiscussions.com/showthread.php?t=81287

Appreciate the follow up!

Re: Proton spam and the AI consent problem

#280

Post by matheusmoreira »

ink_13 wrote: post #253
davidee wrote: post #231

I've been using proton for a year after migrating from Rackspace and I'm done. Not because of this article, but I might as well pile on: 1. I use a custom domain. Turns out that there are two competing features, not-at-all documented. If you use a catch-all, like I do, AND use specific addresses for sending, the two are incompatible to some degree. Which is bonkers. Example: with a catchall I can create any address I…

What are you going to do instead? I am very close to moving from a 20-year-old GMail address to a custom domain and was planning to use Proton as the email host.

I was in your shoes a few years ago. Just move already. Don't worry about it. Get your own domain and point the MX records at literally any email service out there. If you don't like it you can just switch later. Just start using your own domain as soon as possible.

It really is life changing. When you have your own domain switching email services is risk free since your addresses don't change. You can literally try out all the email services out there.

For the record I'm a happy Proton customer. They seem to be the only ones who still care about PGP. I even interacted with them here on HN a few times.

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