Every company has to collaborate with spy agencies. Majn difference vs. Gmail or most others is for email and files Proton have no information to give except the IP you used (really hard for users to mask), and they seem to deny VPN activity logs 100% of the time.

If you're a criminal that has nation state actors after you I'm not sure what service I'd recommend. For most every other person Proton is way more than private enough.

https://proton.me/legal/transparency

I think I'm with some of the other commenters in that there seems to be an oddly smelling smear campaign against them right now.