Tech Friday: Inching closer to the paid version of ProtonMail
Posted By RichC on October 13, 2023
We live in a world where personal privacy has all but disappeared when it comes to our lives. We are surveilled everywhere and by practically every device. Our connected gadgets collect and send data 
on our every movement … and increasingly “inner” goings-on (smart devices monitoring our health). New cars are pumping data to the cloud and old cars are watched from every angle by other cars, private cameras in building and homes and public street cameras at ever every intersection … not to mention the phones, computer and gadgets we all own. We are told that the surveillance is for safety and benefits society … but then we find out the stored data is also being sold (and stolen) and used for other purposes. This data was once archived and used to investigate crimes, traffic, etc … but increasingly artificial intelligence (AI) is “learning” from it with the goal of using it preemptively … for our safety (cough, cough). Where is this ALL headed?
For the tiny segment of our digital life that we do still semi-control … our personal devices and homes … it is well past time to try to take a few more privacy measures. We use way too many voluntary services that surveil our data in return for free services. Mapping, search databases, websites with information and smartphone apps are great and are often given free to users … BUT as we all know, they are not really doing it free … they are either marketing to us or selling our personal data … or both. We are the product that they are selling to others. Security of this data is suspect as just look at all the breaches to your personal information.
I’m close to making a couple small moves in my digital life primarily to prevent “some” of my personal information from getting into the hands of people or governments who might do more than just market to me. I’ve been using ProtonMail as a secondary email for a little while now and contemplating their paid version once I give up my usa.net and cppnet.com business addresses. The one that I control can easily be converted to Proton servers, the other currently email service does not offer the option … as for Google and Gmail, it is going to be a longer battle.
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