On Jan 14th Proton sent out an email newsletter with the subject line:
Introducing Projects - Try Lumo’s powerful new feature now
screenshot of the official email from @lumo.proton.me
Lumo is Proton’s
There is a problem with this email. And I’m not talking about the question of how exactly AI aligns with Proton’s core values of privacy and security.
The problem is I had already explicitly opted out of Lumo emails.
screenshot of an unchecked toggle
That toggle for “Lumo product updates” is unchecked. Lumo is the only topic I’m not subscribed to. Proton has over a dozen newsletters, including some crypto nonsense. I opt-in to everything but Lumo, I gave an undeniable no to Lumo emails.
So the email I received from Proton is spam, right?
My understanding is that spam is a violation of GDPR and UK data protection laws. Regardless, Proton’s email is a clear abuse of their own service towards a paying business customer.
Before I grab my pitchfork I emailed Proton support.
Proton Support
Despite the subject line and contents, and despite the “From Lumo” name and @lumo.proton.me address, maybe this was an honest mistake?
Proton’s first reply explained how to opt-out.
screenshot of support email quoted below
Hello David,
Thank you for contacting us.
You can unsubscribe from the newsletters if you do the following:
- Log in to your account at https://account.protonvpn.com/login
- Navigate to the Account category
- Disable the check-marks under “Email subscriptions”
- If you need additional assistance, let me know.
[screenshot of the same opt-out toggle]
-Have a nice day.
John Support directs me to the exact same “Lumo product updates” toggle I had already unchecked. I replied explaining that I had already opted out. Support replies saying they’re “checking this with the team” then later replies again asking for screenshots.
Can you make sure to send me a screenshot of this newsletter option disabled, as well as the date when the last message was sent to you regarding the Lumo offer?
You can send me a screenshot of the whole message, including the date.
Is it perhaps 14 January 2026 that you received the message?
I found that last line curious, are they dealing with other unhappy customers? Maybe I’m reading too much into it.
I sent the screenshots and signed off with “Don’t try to pretend this fits into another newsletter category.”
After more “checking this with the team” I got a response today.
In this case, the mentioned newsletter is for promoting Lumo Business Suit to Business-related plans.
Hence, why you received it, as Product Updates and Email Subscription are two different things.
In the subscription section, you will see the “Email Subscription” category, where you can disable the newsletter in order to avoid getting it in the future.
If I understand correctly, Proton are claiming this email is the “Proton for Business newsletter”. Not the “Lumo product updates” newsletter.
I don’t know about you, but I think that’s baloney. Proton Support had five full business days to come up with a better excuse. Please tell me, how can I have been any more explicit about opting out of Lumo emails, only to receive “Try Lumo” “From Lumo”, and be told that is not actually a Lumo email?
Non-Consent
Has anyone else noticed that the AI industry can’t take “no” for an answer? AI is being force-fed into every corner of tech. It’s unfathomable to them that some of us aren’t interested.
The entire AI industry is built upon a common principle of non-consent. They laugh in the face of IP and copyright law. AI bots DDoS websites and lie about user-agents. Can it get worse than the sickening actions of Grok? I dread to think.
As Proton has demonstrated above, and Mozilla/Firefox recently too, the AI industry simply will not accept “no” as an answer. Some examples like spam are more trivial than others, but the growing trend is vile and disturbing.
I do not want your AI.
Scroll past the GitHub aside for another Proton update!
Update for 23rd January
I guess someone at Microsoft read my post and said “hold my beer”. This morning I woke up to a lovely gift in my inbox; “Build Al agents with the new GitHub Copilot SDK”.
GitHub email subject line: 'Build Al agents with the new GitHub Copilot SDK'
GitHub Ensloppification is moving faster than I can delete my account for good. (It’s an unfortunate requirement for client projects.) For the record, I have never said “yes” to any GitHub newsletter. Even before Copilot I disabled every possible GitHub email notification.
The “Unsubscribe” link provides the hidden newsletter list. There is nothing within GitHub account settings I can find to disable spam.
GitHub 'Opt-Out Preferences' with 3 newsletters unchecked but GitHub Copilot emails checked
As expected, Microsoft has opted me in without my consent. The wheels are falling off at GitHub. The brutally slow front-end UI. The embarrassingly lacklustre Actions CI. Now this sloppy tripe everywhere. Reminder to developers: GitHub is not Git.
Proton Update (Afternoon of 23rd)
After I published this blog post yesterday I received another email from Specialist Support / Mail Delivery (Engineering) Team.
The email started:
I completely understand your frustration, and I apologize for the confusion caused by these Overlapping Categories of notifications.
Specifically, some of our communications regarding Lumo fall under Both
Product Updates(Update Info) andEmail Subscriptions(Announcements, Newsletters, and Promos) This is likely why you are still receiving them despite having opted out of one category.
I replied saying that is not how email marketing consent works. I’m pretty sure not legally, I’m certain not morally, and until now, I was convinced not by Proton’s standard. The very first customer support confirmed what should be common sense. Don’t want Lumo emails? Unsubscribe from the “Lumo product updates” category. If it was a business newsletter that happened to mention Lumo as a bullet point, fine. But the entire email was Lumo, talking about how “Our latest Lumo update introduces…”
Anyway, following a lively discussion on Big Tech’s unofficial customer support forum, my case was escalated to Proton’s Head of Customer Support.
Please accept my apologies for how your ticket was managed by our teams. They have tried to explain what happened without acknowledging the problem itself.
You are right. You should not have received the newsletter.
We have identified a bug in our system, and our technical team is working on resolving it.
I want to assure you that we take communication consent very seriously.
We also value our relationship with our customers. The support team will learn from this interaction and improve.
Just FYI I don’t have a problem with how the support ticket was managed. I doubt the first line of defence gets paid enough to deal with this stuff when their employer is at fault. Please don’t replace them with Lumo, then we’ll have problems!
I also see Proton’s CTO replied on Hacker News with a similar message:
Hey, Proton CTO here. There was a bug, and we fucked up. Support should have reported it up the chain and acknowledged this. Things happen, especially at scale, but we take comms consent seriously and will fix it.
So was it a bug? Or did Proton forget their core values and behave like the other slop factories? I’ll take them at their word. What am I going to do, go back to gmail? I’m looking into Tuta and StartMail but it’s a pain to switch and nowhere is perfect.