this post was submitted on 12 Mar 2026
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That is exactly what they did, the user used a credit card with their damn name on it, while Proton even allows you to send them cash money for the service.
The FBI filed a MLAT (Mutual Legal Assistance Treaty) request which was processed by the Swiss Federal Department of Justice and Police.
The Swiss gave a legal binding order to Proton to hand over information that they had, the only information that was handed over was the payment identifier.
I don't get why people get hung up on a company complying with a legal order by their justice system, especially with Proton that could not hand over any more information.
Same. It’s not like these companies can just say no to legal orders within the bounds of their laws. Even solo FOSS devs with their fledgling privacy centric messager apps would have to comply with their country’s laws. I also think a fair number of users that get outraged over it aren’t big on actually reading the privacy policies for the services they use. IMO Proton didn’t do anything surprising here if one reads that policy.
The issue is them having any info to give out in the first place, it is a horrendous transgression for a shop that touts privacy as their thing.
Signal demonstrated that you can decouple payment info from account info and thus they ain't got nothing to produce, MLAT or not. The least Proton coulda done is mimic that tech.
edit: are you shills illiterate, what's your deal? signal also accepts payments, the kind normal people use, like CC and stuff. and they decoupled payment info from account info, so nobody can link John Smith, Fuckville, AL to account protonshill4lyfe@proton.yo
That is not really the same, Signal is a donation and Proton is a subscription where a monthly (or yearly) request has to go to the payment provider for your fee, for this you need to keep the payment information on file and linked to the account. Signal can say I got donated by someone but they do not need to keep this information linked to a specific user, just the payment record (that still has your cc/bank details on it) for tax purposes.
They won't accept Scottish bank notes tho >: (
How did Signal demonstrate this? Signal is not a paid subscription service
I donated them money once. I wonder if they still have a trace of it.
Indeed, but those are crypto payments from a third party crypto wallet. It's also between users and not recurring, so Signal has no reason to keep the data.
Still shame that they can't do it if you pay by card. Being able to send periodic payment by cash is fine but it's a bad excuse to claim that there are no improvements.
Proton allows payment with cash, so you can stay private, but if you use your credit card, your company will know and they have to store it in some way.
Not Protons fault in this case.
They don't have to store it.
Yes they do, for tax purposes. With cash they can only say that an account was payed for by cash, which is not (easily) traceable to you as a person.