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Comment by lysium | Hacker News Reader

This sounds a lot like ‚hide my email‘ by Apple. I’m still concerned what is happening with my data.

With apple, I believe the illusion that it’s not necessary for them to sell my data.

Do we have similar insights about duck, besides our believe they won’t sell our data?

That's a fair concern. I just went to sign up now (apparently my invite was ready but the app hadn't notified me yet), and there's a section that promises their privacy protections will not be weakened by an acquisition:

> We will not allow an ownership change to weaken these privacy guarantees. DuckDuckGo (officially Duck Duck Go, Inc.) is a privately held, independent company, and has been since its founding in 2008. If we are ever acquired by another organization, or if another organization purchases this service, we will email you with details. However, we will not proceed with any deal that weakens these Privacy Guarantees.

As a (former) lawyer, I'd say that this provision is something I've considered necessary for a business to make a credible promise not to sell out at a later date. I have never seen such a provision before, and it makes me feel more confident that they've thought this stuff through and are willing to be held to their promises.

Well, once they get acquired with the promise that _privacy guarantees are not weakened_, what stops the acquirer from weakening them a year later? Just like Facebook and Oculus.

DDG would have to put teeth in their acquisition agreement such that doing so would result in an enormous surcharge or some such thing. They could also make a huge stink publicly, which would result in a mass exodus from their service, making such a move less lucrative for the acquirer.

But yeah, there's always a chance that these protections will go away. That's why it's important that they don't keep data right now, so if anything changes later you can just stop using the service (assuming you check HN daily so you'd know if anything was up!).

Is it possible to craft T&C that has a strong legally binding guarantee that future acquirers have to comply with, such as keep specific features or provisions? Something that would even stand in case of bankrupcy?

I don't think anything can be drafted that would be sure to survive bankruptcy. That's why it's important that they don't keep information in the meantime. If things go sideways, then you just stop using the service. They've committed to telling users if they're being acquired or whatnot.

Imagine if your housecleaner went bankrupt and had the right to sell your house or cover their debts. It's insane that bankruptcy legalizes theft.

They could setup a nonprofit ngo which had their user data keeping as it’s sole purpose, and privacy enshrined in it’s charter.

The nonprofit would be financed by ddg or whoever buys ddg, but the management of nonprofit would be forbidden from sharing the data regardless of how much anyone pays.

At least I think so.

I mean -- in a similar way to Apple, it's how they want you to see their brand. So no guarantees but it would be shortsighted of them to sell the info somehow. Definitely possible but I'm optimistic that they wouldn't.

You should probably consider self hosting your disposable email service. Sending email from home is tricky (at least to gmail/microsoft) but receiving usually works perfectly.

Ah, I was hesitant to even picture spinning my own thing up because of the commonly discussed hurdles. If there's a significant difference in ease between receiving and sending, I could live with that. Sounds super fun actually.

According to some friends, receiving email even works fine on dynamic IPs updated via some kind of DYNDNS-like service. I should probably do that, too! :)

That's a great point! Maybe replying works past the filters, too!

Nope consumer ISPs typically block sending stuff on port 25 whatsoever, and even if you get past your ISP Gmail/Outlook will block you even if your setup is perfect (reverse DNS, DKIM, etc): that's due to monopolistic behavior that's completely disconnected from reasonable expectations of spam protection.

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