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Why Did ProtonMail Vanish from Google Search Results? (2016)

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Re: Why Did ProtonMail Vanish from Google Search Results? (2016)

#61

Post by StreamBright »

f_allwein wrote: post #7

[2016]. Having worked at Google’s Search Quality Evaluation team, I can confirm that Google would only manually remove sites from its search results if they violate its webmaster guidelines: https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/35769?hl=en Of course, there can be other issues preventing a site from showing up in the search results (e.g. site migration issues, accidentally locking out Googlebot in robots.txt,…

You mean violate the political stance of Google or any other arbitrary properties they got. You can go and compare search results across Duckduckgo, Bing and Google to get a full picture how much the search results are censored. When people talk about "net neutrality" I always wonder why isn't there outrage against this, because it is definitely not neutral. Same goes to many Google services, most notably Youtube.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Censorship_by_Google

Re: Why Did ProtonMail Vanish from Google Search Results? (2016)

#62

Post by StreamBright »

awestroke wrote: post #9

Anyone know a good alternative to ProtonMail with no ties to the Israeli Military? Preferably European.

Not sure what you are talking about. What does a Swiss email service has to do with Israeli military? I like conteos as much as the other guy but these allegations are a bit far fetched say the least.

Re: Why Did ProtonMail Vanish from Google Search Results? (2016)

#63

Post by bluehatbrit »

awestroke wrote: post #9

Anyone know a good alternative to ProtonMail with no ties to the Israeli Military? Preferably European.

I've been very happy with migadu.com although I've only recently moved to it. But they make a pledge to privacy in a similar fashion to ProtonMail. I like their pricing and simplicity, they're worth a look.

Re: Why Did ProtonMail Vanish from Google Search Results? (2016)

#65

Post by openplatypus »

rocqua wrote: post #45
dvdkhlng wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

* https://posteo.de/en * https://mailbox.org posteo implements multiple encryption schemes: encrypt incoming mails with GPG (making them inaccessible by any end device not having the corresponding secret key). Or encrypt via the login passphrase with transparent decryption on authorized access.

It is great data hygiene to use encryption at rest. However, it gives no security guarantees. You still need to trust posteo. If posteo wants, they can read all incoming email. Their security scheme depends solely on their good intentions. Still great that their data at rest is encrypted in a way even they cannot read. The scheme does defend against third parties outside of posteo being able to access data, or coerce…

Not sure about Posteo but at least Mailbox.org allows you provide public key and all the email coming in will be encrypted with your public GPG/PGP key.

So you can only read them in your mail client with GPG support.

Yes, mailbox could create copy of your email before encryption. But assuming that they don't/didn't so far, in case they change their mind the historical emails will not be accessible.

The other solution where they keep private key (pass protected), well sure, that pretty much open for abuse but at some level you have to start trusting the law, otherwise everything false apart.

Re: Why Did ProtonMail Vanish from Google Search Results? (2016)

#66

Post by dvdkhlng »

_Codemonkeyism wrote: post #59
dvdkhlng wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Posteo could probably still be coerced to push out a fraudulent client update that still breaks their encrpytion, but that is a very hard problem to deal with. They are based in Germany and would need to be coerced in accordance to german law. I don't think that there is something like National Security Letters in Germany, so doing such a thing without (eventual?) public disclosure seems unlikely. Also posteo regul…

German intelligence services in the past just listened to all traffic at internet exchange points. No need for national security letters.

And not only German intelligence services. This is why most websites nowadays protect against pervasive monitoring by using TLS and ephemeral keys (including Posteo). Also the mail transport layer of most mail servers uses TLS-encrypted SMTP which is safe against pervasive monitoring (but may be affected by MITM attacks).

Some mail servers are set up or can be configured to not trannsmit or receive mails unless TLS protocol can be negotiated (I think mailbox.org allows users to enforce SMTP via TLS by using the domain secure.mailbox.org, not sure about Posteo).

(See also https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc7258

https://support-en.mailbox.org/knowledge-base/article/before...)

[edit] replaced SSL with TLS

Re: Why Did ProtonMail Vanish from Google Search Results? (2016)

#67

Post by sillysaurus3 »

StreamBright wrote: post #61
f_allwein wrote: post #7

[2016]. Having worked at Google’s Search Quality Evaluation team, I can confirm that Google would only manually remove sites from its search results if they violate its webmaster guidelines: https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/35769?hl=en Of course, there can be other issues preventing a site from showing up in the search results (e.g. site migration issues, accidentally locking out Googlebot in robots.txt,…

You mean violate the political stance of Google or any other arbitrary properties they got. You can go and compare search results across Duckduckgo, Bing and Google to get a full picture how much the search results are censored. When people talk about "net neutrality" I always wonder why isn't there outrage against this, because it is definitely not neutral. Same goes to many Google services, most notably Youtube. ht…

Concrete examples?

Re: Why Did ProtonMail Vanish from Google Search Results? (2016)

#68

Post by f_allwein »

Retric wrote: post #51
f_allwein wrote: post #7

[2016]. Having worked at Google’s Search Quality Evaluation team, I can confirm that Google would only manually remove sites from its search results if they violate its webmaster guidelines: https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/35769?hl=en Of course, there can be other issues preventing a site from showing up in the search results (e.g. site migration issues, accidentally locking out Googlebot in robots.txt,…

It's interesting, but this is probably one of the reasons google has become so terrible. It's treating searches as a game, not something it needs to improve. Resulting in a steady decline year after year.

I don't understand. Google is putting considerable resources and effort into improving search quality.

Re: Why Did ProtonMail Vanish from Google Search Results? (2016)

#69

Post by tgragnato »

fastball wrote: post #60
joosters wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So Google's recommended way of reporting a problem is to post on a forum that Google themselves don't officially read (or promise any kind of response)? Do you understand why some people might not think that's a satisfactory solution?

It's not like you have a right to appear in Google's search results... I'll rag on Google's poor support as much as the next guy, but only when it's warranted. ProtonMail and anyone else that gets delisted / what-have-you is not Google's client and shouldn't expect first-class support for things like this.

This is not a matter of support, although I understand why it is convenient for Google to consider the issue from this point of view. $$$

The problem is that when a search engine has the overwhelming majority of the online search market, freedom of information has a strict dependence on the QoS of that engine.

Since people (at least in Europe) have a legal right to freedom of information, if Google is not providing support in this regard, then it's responsible for not respecting rights of European citizens.

edit:

Freedom of information is part of the Swiss constitution too.

> Every person has the right to receive information freely, to obtain it from generally accessible sources and to disseminate it [16.3]

Re: Why Did ProtonMail Vanish from Google Search Results? (2016)

#70

Post by f_allwein »

StreamBright wrote: post #61
f_allwein wrote: post #7

[2016]. Having worked at Google’s Search Quality Evaluation team, I can confirm that Google would only manually remove sites from its search results if they violate its webmaster guidelines: https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/35769?hl=en Of course, there can be other issues preventing a site from showing up in the search results (e.g. site migration issues, accidentally locking out Googlebot in robots.txt,…

You mean violate the political stance of Google or any other arbitrary properties they got. You can go and compare search results across Duckduckgo, Bing and Google to get a full picture how much the search results are censored. When people talk about "net neutrality" I always wonder why isn't there outrage against this, because it is definitely not neutral. Same goes to many Google services, most notably Youtube. ht…

No, this is an entirely separate process. The wikipedia link you shared relates to content that is illegal in a country, so consequently Google does not show it. E.g. in my home country (Germany), this includes some types of Nazi propaganda. I would assume all other search engines follow the same rules.
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