Switzerland-based Proton, the privacy-focused agency behind end-to-end encrypted (E2EE) webmail ProtonMail and different apps, has acquired Customary Notes, a note-taking app based again in 2017. It affords the identical type of strong privateness promise to its 300,000+ customers by additionally making use of E2EE.
In a press launch asserting the transfer, Proton emphasised the pair’s “shared values,” together with the usage of E2EE; a dedication to open-source know-how; and the way neither has relied upon enterprise capital to drive progress.
E2EE is taken into account the gold normal of security know-how as service suppliers don’t maintain encryption keys. This implies they’re technically unable to decrypt person knowledge, safeguarding customers’ content material behind a so-called “zero data” structure. Put one other method, you don’t must belief the service supplier to not snoop.
By including Customary Notes to its portfolio of apps, Proton will deepen its attain with an engaged group of pro-privacy customers, layering on further cross-selling alternatives in addition to boosting the utility of its app ecosystem.
The note-taking app fills an apparent hole in Proton’s present lineup.
Proton applies its flagship E2EE promise of sturdy security to a collection of merchandise, together with e mail, calendar and cloud storage. Moreover, it affords a VPN service. It launched its personal pro-privacy and anti-censorship CAPTCHA service final 12 months to additional complement its choices, however it hasn’t had a devoted note-taking app till now.
A key plank of the pair’s “community-focused” method is a freemium technique that goals to help wider product entry by means of premium (paying) customers successfully subsidizing free customers. And whereas there may be some utilization overlap, a Proton spokesperson stated that lower than 1 / 4 of Customary Notes customers are already Proton customers. So there’s room for cross-selling and additional group constructing.
Proton stated the Customary Notes app, which is on the market for each cellular and desktop, will stay “open supply, freely out there and absolutely supported”.
It additionally instructed that there will likely be no change to Customary Notes’ costs; its press launch specifies that current five-year subscriptions “will proceed to be honored.”
Commenting in a press release, Mo Bitar, founder and CEO of Customary Notes, talked up the sense of shared mission. “At Customary Notes, over the previous seven years we have now sought to create a spot the place individuals are free to assume and write with out the fear that somebody is wanting over their shoulder. That freedom is extremely uncommon on the web at the moment, and one thing that we need to safeguard endlessly,” he wrote.
“To allow us to do that, we’re excited to hitch forces with Proton — one of many few organizations that shares our ethos and isn’t solely mission-driven however open-sourced, self-sustaining and group targeted. In Proton, we’ve discovered a associate that shares our laser give attention to defending privateness.”
Proton was based again in 2014, however Customary Notes is just the second firm it’s picked up. As an alternative, it‘s largely targeted on constructing merchandise in-house to broaden its vary and develop utilization (a 12 months in the past it introduced passing 100M customers). This contains constructing on its first acquisition — e mail alias startup SimpleLogin, which it acquired in 2022 — in addition to growing and launching absolutely fledged password supervisor app Proton Move in June.
In that case, Proton leaned on the SimpleLogin workforce it acquired for the majority of the product improvement. So the corporate is evidently not allergic to person acquisition and different consolidation-based progress alternatives the place it sees sufficient philosophical overlap plus the prospect to deepen its technical financial institution.
Because it folds Customary Notes into its deck, Proton goals to repeat the trick, saying it expects the Customary Notes workforce to make “important contributions in the direction of the creation and enchancment of Proton’s ecosystem of current and future merchandise.” The broader objective is furthering the shared “mission” of “constructing a greater web the place privateness is the default,” as its PR places it.
“The deal is a strategic resolution designed to learn customers by bringing to market safe, straightforward to make use of, non-public merchandise that anybody can entry,” Proton wrote. “Customary Notes and Proton engineers will start working collectively instantly to make sure their mixed abilities and expertise bear fruit for customers as quickly as doable.”
Proton founder and CEO Andy Yen confirmed the respective apps use totally different encryption schemes. “However that’s truly not an issue for integration because it’s a separate app, he informed information.killnetswitch. “At a later level, we could make the accounts interoperable so {that a} Proton account can even log into Customary Notes and vice versa, as we did with SimpleLogin.”
Requested in regards to the sustainability of pro-privacy enterprise fashions that don’t depend on exploitation of person knowledge — when a lot of mainstream tech nonetheless continues to roll within the reverse, data-mining course — Yen emphasised the necessity for long-term considering by privateness startups. And for screwing braveness to the sticking place.
“Competing with Massive Tech might be the toughest enterprise problem that exists at the moment as a result of unfair and abusive techniques utilized by tech giants to hinder opponents,” he stated. “Whereas current actions, such because the EU’s Digital Markets Act or the DOJ lawsuit in opposition to Apple, could finally stage the enjoying area, it’ll take a few years. It’s a essential step in the suitable course however gained’t make a right away influence.”
“Meaning you must be a bit loopy to try this problem at the moment, and the one technique to do it over the long term is to be doing it for the suitable causes. The target can’t be short-term and even mid-term monetary outcomes, as these are more likely to be difficult to realize. As an alternative, it’s essential be mission-driven sufficient to outlive the brutally troublesome lengthy sport.”
Monetary phrases of the acquisition usually are not being disclosed.
