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Proton spam and the AI consent problem

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Re: Proton spam and the AI consent problem

#431

Post by bigyabai »

vee-kay wrote: post #346
bigyabai wrote: post #288

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> because it was found that terrorists and perverts were using it for terror communications and digital sexual abuse. Lol, nondescript "terrorists and perverts" are the laughingstock of Western politics. Eyes roll whenever someone justifies drastic action on vague terrorism/perversion accusations: https://youtu.be/ud9zBKJJQe4 My bigger concern is Modi's international reputation for exacerbating crime statistics to ma…

Please stay on topic. J&K has long been a target of terror attacks. Long before Modi as PM. Proton has no business inciting terrorists in known terrorist hotspots to evade the government.

Privacy is the topic.

Re: Proton spam and the AI consent problem

#432

Post by tmarice »

chrisjj wrote: post #423
tmarice wrote: post #415

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well they still claim it is impossible to connect different masked emails together. If you as a sender can reliably determine the target email address, then that claim is untrue as well.

Where are they still claiming that?

On their Masked Email feature page https://www.fastmail.com/features/masked-email/

> Companies have no way of linking different Masked Email addresses together to track you.

I have received the Fastmail support response, and since they do not consider this a vulnerability, I'll post it here:

- You have a Masked Email

- You have set up forwarding from your Fastmail account to another email service

- The other email service rejects the mail for some reason

- The bounce message goes back to the original sender, and may include the email addresses along the chain after the Masked Email address.

I'm assuming the bounce message contains the X-Resolved-To header mentioned in the other HN thread linked above.

Re: Proton spam and the AI consent problem

#433

Post by chrisjj »

tmarice wrote: post #432
chrisjj wrote: post #423

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Where are they still claiming that?

On their Masked Email feature page https://www.fastmail.com/features/masked-email/ > Companies have no way of linking different Masked Email addresses together to track you. I have received the Fastmail support response, and since they do not consider this a vulnerability, I'll post it here: - You have a Masked Email - You have set up forwarding from your Fastmail account to another email service - The other email se…

Thanks. I agree. The privacy claim is contradicted by Support's "may include the email addresses along the chain". I note though that I got the opposite answer from Support.

Did you request escalation?

Re: Proton spam and the AI consent problem

#434

Post by ivan_gammel »

boringg wrote: post #223
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…

The idea that the marketing team has the ability to really push back against senior management doesn't align with the reality I have seen. The best they can do is say that this will do brand damage -- but they don't have the ability to really call the shots. Most organizations marketing is not in a real seat of power - more like an advisory position. I'm not trying to unfair to marketing - they do have an important r…

They may not have power to push back on KPIs, but even just sticking to regulatory compliance would be good enough. Nobody in management will say in writing that marketing should ignore GDPR, for example. And that means that if you, say, introduce a new category, everyone is supposed to be unsubscribed by default. So non-compliance is always a choice.

Re: Proton spam and the AI consent problem

#435

Post by ivan_gammel »

skywhopper wrote: post #149
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…

It is entirely related, because AI marketing is an amped up version of traditional dark-pattern marketing. And since every tech company is on the AI hype train, then they all fall into the same willingness to justify the worst behavior because of their desperate need to get on the forefront of what they’ve convinced themselves is the only path to growth. But as consumers, since we are confronted with all tech compani…

AI marketing is not different at all from performance marketing of other solutions. This is really just ordinary consent management and privacy problem. I have participated in large scale email marketing implementations too, and know how it looks from the inside. As a tech partner you may even have a good peer on the business side who cares about customers and compliance, but institutional resistance is still hard to overcome. Sometimes it is just as dumb as an old spreadsheet with contacts being uploaded again and again into your mass mail system, without any consent tracking and ignoring any opt-outs that came after the spreadsheet was created.

Re: Proton spam and the AI consent problem

#436

Post by MiddleEndian »

vee-kay wrote: post #430
MiddleEndian wrote: post #407

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure, you can manually unmark them as spam, and gmail should respect that preference as well. But for the rest of us, it would be an improvement if Paypal was sent to spam by default until they were forced to stop sending spam.

You can just create a filter in Gmail for "Paypal" (keyword match or sender match) to automatically mark such incoming emails as spam. Don't expect Google to blacklist big companies like PayPal, Amazon, etc. They all have partnerships.

I already have a ton of gmail filters and folders, most of which I rarely check.

Any organization that continues to send marketing material after someone clicks Unsubscribe (with maybe a grace period of a few hours) should have all of their email considered spam for everyone by default. If they continue or ever start sending marketing materials afterwards because of some new bullshit category, all of their email should be considered spam by default as well. If their Unsubscribe process is more complicated than one or two clicks, you should be able to report this as well, and... you guessed it, I think all of their emails should be considered spam by default for everyone.

Obviously I don't expect Gmail to do actually do this (except maybe by accident sometimes lol). But I wish they did.

Re: Proton spam and the AI consent problem

#437

Post by kamyarg »

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.

icloud mail support custom domains.

I am using them.

Sending an email from catch-all covered email is not a big issues also, create use, delete and it still works.

I am slowly transitioning to icloud from gmail, was thinking of proton but reading the above comment made me change my mind, good custom domain support is a must for me.

Re: Proton spam and the AI consent problem

#438

Post by kamyarg »

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…

I have the exact same workflow as you.

icloud works great.

Was thinking of proton but reading your comment has changed my mind, good catch-all custom domain support is a must for me.

Re: Proton spam and the AI consent problem

#439

Post by browningstreet »

chrisjj wrote: post #249
browningstreet wrote: post #236

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Gmail Google Workspaces

Maybe not equal but when I launch Gmail the page says "Google Workspace" and I get Gmail, Docs etc. as per https://workspace.google.com/intl/en_uk/resources/what-is-wo... .

Google has always released to Workspaces and Gmail separately. In this case the Gemini button is in Workspaces (because they’re a paid tier) but not yet Gmail.

Re: Proton spam and the AI consent problem

#440

Post by account42 »

homebrewer wrote: post #290
SCdF wrote: post #281

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> With AI, if well done, it would be useful nearly everywhere. I fundamentally disagree with this. I never, now or in the future, want to use AI to generate or alter communication or expression primarily between me and other humans. I do not want emails or articles summarised, I do not emails or documents written for me, I do not want my photos altered yassified. Not now, not ever.

How about machine translation and fixing grammar in languages you're not very familiar with? That's the only use of "AI" I've found so far. I'd rather read (and write) broken English in informal contexts like this forum, but there are enough more formal situations.

I don't want those added to anything either - if I want to translate something I'll use a dedicated tool.
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