Protonmail Founder: Apple and Google’s Surveillance Capitalism Is ‘Not Good for Users’ or ‘Society’

Protonmail founder Andy Yen recently commented on big tech firms like Apple and Google, stating that their business models are “not good for users [and] not good for society.” The focus of Yen’s ire is surveillance capitalism, the business model of Silicon Valley giants like Facebook that turn the private lives of their users into information sold to the highest bidder.

The Independent reports that Proton chief Andy Yen has some choice words for tech giants Google, Facebook, and Apple. Yen is the founder behind Proton, which runs the encrypted email client Protonmail and ProtonVPN. Yen stated that the “surveillance capitalism” model “wasn’t the reason that Tim [Berners-Lee] built the web.” Berners-Lee has sat on Proton’s advisory board since September 2021.

The term “surveillance capitalism” refers to the tech giants’ collection of user data to build profiles and provide better advertising information to third-party advertisers. Google and Facebook have dominated the online ad space using such data collection methods for some time, while Apple has also begun building its own Search Ads advertising division.

Proton announced the creation of its own app ecosystem recently, introducing Proton Drive and Proton Calendar, attempting to take on the cloud storage and calendar services offered by Google and Apple. Yen stated that customers have been asking for a number of other features from Proton, including online documents, password managers, chat apps, and more.

“To a large extent, products and services have kind of gone away”, Yen said. “There are three ecosystems, essentially: there’s Microsoft, there’s Google, there’s Apple. And Facebook, maybe, depending on who you ask. Privacy needs an ecosystem. You talk to most consumers around and you ask them: ‘Do you like Google’s vision of the web?’ Once they realize what it is, they’re terrified.”

However, Google’s app ecosystem is incredibly popular despite these worries, Google Search continues to hold a monopoly on the search engine market, and Google Chrome is the world’s most popular web browser. Yen claims that this is due to a lack of competition.

“If you ask somebody if they want more privacy and security … everybody wants it,” Yen said. “With the way that Android and iOS are setting all the default on devices – in a frankly anticompetitive way – in a mobile-first world … what else do you know?”

Read more at The Independent here.

Lucas Nolan is a reporter for Breitbart News covering issues of free speech and online censorship. Follow him on Twitter @LucasNolan or contact via secure email at the address lucasnolan@protonmail.com