Put "By default we don't keep IP, but may be required to by local laws. We suggest you connect through Protonmail through Tor".

I would much prefer this, as a Protonmail paying customer.

I mean they are misleading in so far you want them to...

I'm a privacy activist and certainly think that a company should be able to not keep logs. If the law in the country they are in (or area, see for example the data retention directive in the EU) we should of course (and I am) work to change those laws.

It should come as no surprise to anyone who is privacy minded and actively seek out privacy focused services that are located within the EU or Switzerland that your IP (or other information) can be requested with a warrant and that a company is required to hand that over.

It's not misleading in that many services do keep records by default. If people don't understand what default means, they should grow their understanding, not be outraged that their uninformed opinion was wrong.

That your emails are supposedly stored encrypted, that if other services support it end-to-end email encryption supposedly can be enabled easily, and that supposedly you cannot be served targeted ads because they cannot read the contents of your email (not that they have ads anyway).

Of course Protonmail is accessible via Tor. Not that you should need to do that to remain private.

End-to-end encrypted emails, not massive collection of metadata to build advertising profiles, and, maybe this will sound strange, but I wanted to pay for these services because I want to show everyone that there is a paying market and you don't have to rely on advertising to be profitable in this space.

No service is capable of completely hiding IPs and still getting you the data. If you "threat model" includes hiding from Western governments, I'd recommend not using the internet.

I never said it didn't matter. I think the data retention laws and for what crimes the police are able to get certain warrants in the EU and Switzerland can be better.

But that is not a proton issue that is an issue with our current governments.

Use of the service for any “unlawful or prohibited activities” violates the TOS, so if law enforcement has evidence of that (which they may), then PM has a clear right to log IP.

A user with the intent to engage in unlawful activities should read the terms of services in full. If that user only reads the homepage of the service, without understanding the implication of each word, and does not bother to review the terms in details, that is on him.

Moreover, I would like to point out that ProtonMail is about encryption of email *content*. It is foolish to expect more from them. They won't protect your identity: law enforcement can know who you are and who you communicate with, but they cannot know the content of your emails (if you recipient uses encryption services as well).

I understand it to mean they can enable IP logging for a mailbox in response to a court order.