
Search Risk – How Google Almost Killed ProtonMail - el_duderino
https://protonmail.com/blog/search-risk-google/
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mankash666
If the accusations are indeed true, it's disappointing behavior from Google.
For a "Do No Evil" company, they certainly seem to be abusing their market
position. We should, in the very least, demand a formal explanation.

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dismantlethesun
Every since they made "do no evil" their position, it seems that evil has been
redefined from "profoundly immoral and malevolent" to "anything I don't really
like, even if it only slightly harms someone else's position".

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lucastx
Google is supposedly hiding a direct competitor to one of its main product
from its search engine, the main entry of the Internet for millions of people
that aren't very proficient with computers.

Google's product, Gmail offer considerably lower security and privacy than
this competitor and using it instead of ProtonMail may very realistically get
someone (a journalist, whistleblower, LGBT activist...) in deep trouble or
even killed in lots of places and contexts.

I think this is a pretty evil move. Not only for this but what it represents
when, again, millions of people were educated for years to enter the Internet
through this search engine and don't have any clue that it may not only tamper
with the order of the results but also hide websites.

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x1798DE
If you are using ProtonMail for anything critical you're doing it wrong. It
might be more convenient than other encrypted mail solutions, but it's in-
browser cryptography with all the security issues that entails.

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lucastx
Sure it is not the best tool -- but depending on what means "critical" in your
context it provides great security. Not against the NSA targeted attacks,
sure, but if you're not so concerned about your adversary using exploits and
more sophisticated tools (versus just demanding data from the provider or
something like that) ProtonMail goes a long way.

Anyway it is, for most cases I can think of, much better than Gmail.

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eth0up
I certainly upvoted this submission and use Protonmail regularly. They may
soon be supporting PGP keys too, which would make them all the better. If I
remember correctly, the Swiss recently got some attention for voting in favor
of stronger surveillance, which surprised me. I wonder if it will affect
Protonmail in any way. Here's a link from another "secure" email service that
wrote about it: [https://tutanota.com/blog/posts/surveillance-
switzerland](https://tutanota.com/blog/posts/surveillance-switzerland)

~~~
tr1ck5t3r
US tech companies make a decent living out of servicing the US Govt's
requests. IF you dont want to be spied on dont use US Tech, it could not be
more simple than that.

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wyldfire
How can I help break up the monoculture? I try to check in to DDG every few
months but I'm just not satisfied with the results.

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aqp
It's common for ranking to change, even wildly, when significantly changing a
website. Especially changing its address!

So what's the theory, Google waited and waited, watching and hoping that
protonmail would change their address, to give them cover to change the
ranking manually?

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RachelF
Who did they rank instead of ProtonMail?

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dismantlethesun
People seem to think that search is meant to be unbiased, thus any bias added
after the fact is not just bad but is malicious just by being there.

But... even if the worst is true, and Google treats its search results like
its own personal pulpit, is that so bad? Should Google be required to
advertise for _all_ its competitors in _every_ field, just because they happen
to have a website?

Google's algorithm is secret; there's nothing to imply that its results are
anything except editorials.

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lossolo
> But... even if the worst is true, and Google treats its search results like
> its own personal pulpit, is that so bad?

Yes.

[http://fortune.com/2016/10/24/google-antitrust-
eu/](http://fortune.com/2016/10/24/google-antitrust-eu/)

[http://www.cnbc.com/2016/07/19/google-could-
face-3-separate-...](http://www.cnbc.com/2016/07/19/google-could-
face-3-separate-antitrust-cases-eu-competition-chief.html)

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dismantlethesun
Well, I guess that answers the question of if its bad for Google's bottom line
once caught, but I was questioning if it was immoral in general.

Plenty of things are unpopular, or illegal, or annoying but not necessarily
immoral.

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mankash666
Anti monopoly laws name it illegal for Google to hide it's competitors
deliberately. No one on this thread believes it's not immoral for Google to be
doing this

