I understand the points about having to comply with laws. But what is is unjustifiable is my view is that their marketing does not match the reality. They probably did some A/B testing and saw that keeping vague promises about not tracking users increases conversion rate. You, as an HN reader, being in the top 0.1% of the population in terms of tech-savviness, may be able to read through the nonsense and understand how little it means when they say "by default, we do not keep any IP logs". But the other 99.9% of the population won't understand it, and that's why their marketing strategy works: they are selling a level of privacy that does not exist to customers who do not know better without technically lying.
Their threat model and all threat scenarios should be front and centre on their front page and sign up page. That is if they care about user privacy not just the bottom line. They have a choice between better-informed customers or more money, and so far, they have chosen the latter.
What this and the new Apple debacle have proven to me is that privacy is not a product that can be purchased. If you want real privacy, you have spend a lot of time learning how to preserve your privacy. No matter what Apple and ProtonMail and similar companies tell you, you cannot buy privacy off-the-shelf.
Their threat model and all threat scenarios should be front and centre on their front page and sign up page. That is if they care about user privacy not just the bottom line. They have a choice between better-informed customers or more money, and so far, they have chosen the latter.
What this and the new Apple debacle have proven to me is that privacy is not a product that can be purchased. If you want real privacy, you have spend a lot of time learning how to preserve your privacy. No matter what Apple and ProtonMail and similar companies tell you, you cannot buy privacy off-the-shelf.