Mullvad changed…
For those of you who don’t know, we’re waging a war against involuntary Big Tech. Thanks to you sharing our article criticizing Mullvad’s use of Gmail, they just started self-hosting emails:
https://mullvad.net/en/blog/we-now-self-host-our-support-email
Huge win for freedom, because it shows that it’s possible to get someone to give a shit. But unfortunately, there’s still a lot of work to be done. The overwhelming majority of privacy/political freedom/crypto sites all use it and do not give one diddly squat.
However, despite the odds against us, I believe change is possible. And here is the plan. We need another 2 or 3 wins to give this idea some momentum. Then I will do serious outreach, and convince “privacy” sites to reduce big tech hopefully without it coming to public shame. And I start with THE most egregious abuse case AnonShop. Anonshop.app offers supposedly “anonymous” Amazon packages for Monero, to hide your info…
But where does Anonshop.app host this? On Amazon’s AWS! They charge 20% above cost, to have packages forwarded to people’s homes, to hide their address from Amazon, only to have them submit their address in a text box literally on Amazon’s servers?! You’re going to say “oh but there’s a PGP key”. Yeah a public key that this CIA contractor can swap! You don’t think they see what you’re doing as money laundering?
If you’re a Bitcoin Maxi, I call upon you to talk shit. The crusade I fight has the potential to spread across all privacy sites. Purse.io WAS the Bitcoin version of AnonShop, but they got bought out and ended. Let’s get these types of shops back up with public support, but open in the right way.
If you’re a Monero head, now is your chance to get better service. If AnonShop will change to a privacy-respecting host, one that keeps the crypto economy circular… Then I pledge to give them free advertising on my nostr and session feeds. Give them the Session name “AnonShop” to use. Write an article about their service, and most importantly recommend them when people ask.
But my words will fall on deaf ears without you. For if I am ignored, it’s your freedom that’s ignored. But if you embrace this and share it, we can someday make invasive spyware an option and not a requirement. And most importantly, a circular economy. A world where you don’t even need sites like AnonShop or Purse, because the vendors accept it direct. Mullvad just showed us change is possible, and two is trend.
I’m an optimist. Are you?