The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has released a report exposing how Big Tech companies are overstepping privacy boundaries in their quest for user data. The report reveals the massive amount of personal information these companies collect, store, and profit from. Often, this is done without clear user consent or transparency. As concerns over data privacy grow, the report highlights the urgent need for stronger regulation and more responsible data practices.
In this blog post, we’ll break down the key findings of the FTC’s report and discuss how this overreach affects your privacy, along with what actions you can take to protect your data.
Key Findings of the FTC’s Report on Big Tech’s Data Practices
Social media platforms like Meta (Facebook, Instagram) and X (Twitter) are huge parts of our online lives. They’re where we catch up with friends, get our news, and share ideas. But while these platforms bring us together in a lot of ways, they also come with big problems—especially when it comes to privacy and misinformation. For a company like Runbox, being part of these platforms just doesn’t make sense. Here’s why.
1. Privacy Comes First
Runbox has built its reputation on privacy. It’s not just a feature—it’s the whole point. We don’t collect or sell your data to third-party advertisers. In fact, privacy is baked into everything we do.
Meta and X (Twitter) on the other hand make a lot of their money by gathering tons of data about their users—everything from your location to your browsing history. They use that data to target ads and sell you things, often without your full understanding of how much info they’re collecting. For Runbox, which is all about user privacy, being associated with platforms that profit off personal data just doesn’t align with our values.
Malware poses a significant threat to our personal information and security. From ransomware to keyloggers, malicious software programs can infiltrate our devices and compromise our most sensitive data, including contact lists. In this post, we’ll explore how malware works, the risks it presents, and the potential consequences of a breach.
What is Malware?
Malware, short for malicious software, is any software designed to harm, exploit, or compromise the functionality of a computer or network. One of the primary goals of many malware types is to steal sensitive information. Here’s how it works:
Malware often enters a device through infected downloads, email attachments, or compromised websites. Users may inadvertently install it by clicking on malicious links or accepting untrustworthy downloads.
Once installed, the malware can access various parts of the system. Spyware, for instance, can monitor keystrokes and capture personal information, while other types may directly search for files containing sensitive data.
Many malware types can scan for contact lists stored on devices, and extract names, phone numbers, and email addresses. This information can then be used for spam, phishing attacks, or sold on the dark web.
We live in an era of constant digital surveillance, where governments and corporations collect vast amounts of personal data. Privacy has become one of the most pressing issues for people around the world. From targeted ads to government surveillance programs, personal information is constantly at risk. Protecting that privacy is not just a matter of convenience — it’s essential to safeguarding our freedoms, security, and autonomy. Runbox’s base in Norway plays a pivotal role in safeguarding your personal information.
Privacy is a Fundamental Right
At its core, privacy is about freedom. In the U.S, it is enshrined in the Constitution, particularly the Fourth Amendment, which protects citizens from unreasonable searches and seizures by the government. Although the right to privacy isn’t explicitly stated in the Constitution, it’s been interpreted by courts to protect citizens from government intrusion into personal matters.
The idea that individuals have the right to keep their lives private — free from government or corporate interference — is a cornerstone of American democracy. Without privacy, individuals lose the ability to express themselves freely, to think and act without fear of surveillance or judgment. Privacy is integral to a free society, where people can associate with others, speak their minds, and live without being monitored at all times.
Runbox is dedicated to providing sustainable email services from the heart of Norway, where strict privacy regulations safeguard your data. We’re excited to introduce 3-year plans that offer a 20% discount. By choosing Runbox, you support sustainable practices that make a positive impact on the environment while enjoying fast, secure, and privacy protected email services from Norway.
Today, we are pleased to announce new 3-year price plans with a 20% discount.
We pride ourselves on delivering premium email services at an affordable price. In fact, we have not increased our prices since our company’s inception, and at the same time we have added substantial storage to all our plans. In a time when price hikes on essential services have become the norm, we believe in offering you predictability and stability for a service as vital as email.
This means you’ll get high quality premium email services at a great value. With plans starting as low as $1.40 per month for our Micro plan, you can choose from six different pricing tiers to find the perfect fit for your storage needs. No surprises – your email service costs are transparent and locked in for three years, ensuring peace of mind and excellent service at a great price.
Runbox is an independent, employee-owned company with a focus on security, privacy, and sustainability.
We are committed to connecting people across our planet consistent with strong environmental principles. We care deeply about our impact on our planet and work to minimize our ecological footprint. The entire Runbox email service infrastructure runs on 100% certified hydroelectric power, and we are transparent about our efforts to remain sustainable.
2. Privacy Protection 🔐
Runbox is based in Norway, and your emails and personal data are protected by strict Norwegian and European data protection regulations. This means that your data is completely private and secure. We do not sell your data, we don’t track your usage, and we don’t share any personal information.
3. Ethical Operations ⚖️
We are an independent company guided by strong ethical values that shape our business practices, service development, and customer relationships. As an employee-owned organization, we all have a stake in our operations and we are not beholden to investors or big tech.
4. Open Source Transparency 🌐
We support open-source software which ensures the continuous auditing of our own software by the tech community. In other words, it offers an additional layer of trust in how Runbox handles your data. Open-source systems also give you the peace of mind that there are no hidden backdoors or surveillance tactics baked into the platform.
5. Secure and Reliable ✨
We provide high-capacity, reliable service. Easily create multiple alternative addresses and different profiles for all your communication, and consolidate all your email in one place. Two-factor authentication (2FA) adds an extra layer of protection to your account, and encryption helps keep your communication secure.
6. Excellent Customer Support 💬
The Runbox Team combines diverse experience serving customers around the world. Whether you’re setting up a new account or migrating from another service, our team is available to help you every step of the way. With an extensive help section, along with our Email School and how-to’s, we address any issue quickly and efficiently.
Runbox is perfect for anyone who values sustainability and privacy, and a user-friendly email platform.
It’s important to have some predictability when it comes to essential services such as email. What we offer is a balance between sustainability, privacy, and affordability. With strong privacy protection, open-source transparency, and a commitment to sustainability, Runbox is much more than just an email provider. It is a platform built for users who care about the future of digital communication and our planet. Lock in a discounted price today.
Our top recommended plans
See all our plans on our Price Plan Page and experience the Runbox difference.
If you are an existing Runbox customer, thank you! You can purchase the 3-year plan directly in your account here.
In today’s digital world, privacy and security are more important than ever. As we navigate online communications, it’s important to understand how encryption can safeguard our emails. Let’s explore what encryption is, how it works, and why you want to consider using it.
What is Encryption?
When you send an email without encryption, it’s like sending a private message on a postcard – anyone who handles it can read its contents. At its core, encryption works by converting the readable data of an email into a scrambled format. Basically, the contents of that email turns into gibberish so that nobody can read it. The point is to keep the email private while it’s in transit from you to the recipient.
Even though most email services use some form of encryption for data in transit, this is not the same as end-to-end encryption. With end-to-end encryption, only the sender and the recipient can read the message. This method effectively prevents anyone else, including email providers, from accessing the content of your messages.
While many of us might feel that we have little to hide and aren’t overly concerned about others reading our communications, it’s important to understand how our information could be accessed. Encryption helps to safeguard our personal information, which may contain sensitive details about our personal finances, family matters, or other private information.
The Real Cost of Our Digital Communications is Our Privacy.
You’ve been happily using “free” email for years, and haven’t thought much about it. The problem is that it’s not really free. You become the product, and you pay with your privacy. Let’s dive into what it means.
1. Free is not free
With countless services offering “free” email accounts, it’s easy to assume that we can communicate without any cost. But companies that offer free email typically rely on advertising revenue, which means they collect vast amounts of data about our habits, interests, and communications. They use this information to tailor advertising, and that’s how they make money.
Email aliases are great – they help organize emails, reduce spam and protect our identity. But sometimes we need a quick way to create an alias without having to log in to our account to set it up. That’s when we can use plus-addressing, or subaddressing.
You simply add a + to your email address followed by a tag.
Any email sent to a plus-address is delivered to your account as usual. The message is still addressed to the plus-address, and you can use this in various ways to manage your email.
Plus-addressing benefits
Make up addresses on the fly without having to set anything up in your Runbox account.
Works with any email address, alias or domain.
Use a plus-address to identify sites where you used your email address.
Plus-addresses can help hide your main email address.
Use a different tag for each site so that if one has a data leak you know which one it is.
Filter email to specific folders based on the plus-addressing.
Create a filter to delete email to that particular plus address if it starts receiving spam.
Plus-addressing and email aliases are great tools to manage your email. With a Runbox account you get unlimited plus-addressing and 100 email aliases. If you have your own domain name, you get unlimited aliases. Check out this post for more info about aliases.
You can get more details about plus-addressing here.
To learn about how to create email aliases, check out this blog post.
Do you use email aliases? Aliases are a great tool that can help protect your identity, reduce spam, and organize your inbox.
Aliases are alternative email addresses that you can use to separate emails. Instead of using the same address for everything, you set up different aliases for online subscriptions, registrations, newsletters, social media, business contacts and so on. Any category that works for you. You can use your main address for friends and family, or create another alias.
All your aliases are set up under your main email account, and is delivered to your primary inbox. You can even set up filters so that mail is separated into specific folders in your account.
Not only will aliases give you another layer of anonymity, it also gives you control over your information and makes online tracking more difficult. Having aliases can help prevent someone hacking your main email account, and helps protect you from phishing attacks. If one of your aliases starts to receive lots of spam, you can easily delete the alias and set up a new one.
Oslo District Court has found Grindr’s sharing of personal data illegal as a result of the Norwegian Consumer Council complaint from 2020. Accordingly, Grindr has to pay EUR 5 million, as fined by the Council.
Our guardians of personal data and privacy: NDPA, NPAB, and NCC
As we have written multiple times in our blog series about GDPR and consequences of this EU-regulation, Norway has a long history of protecting citizens’ personal information. It started out with the first Personal Data Act implemented in 1978 with the purpose of protecting the individual against privacy being violated through the processing of personal data. The law was updated with GDPR clauses in the year 2000.
In 1980, the Norwegian Data Protection Authority (NDPA) was established as an independent authority whose task is to monitor compliance with the Personal Data Act. It is important to note that the NDPA has two roles: supervisory authority and ombudsman.
The NDPA decisions may be appealed to NPAB, Norwegian Privacy Appeals Board (Personvernnemda), whose decisions are final.
During recent years, another Norwegian governmental public body, the Norwegian Consumer Council (NCC), whose role is to protect consumers’ interests, has become involved in privacy, more precisely the misuse of personal data that big tech companies are involved in. As a governmental-independent agency, the NCC is free to chose the cases they want to work on.
Sharing of personal data is illegal without specific consent: The Grindr case
Recently, the NCC has put effort into the task of preventing the big tech companies from using personal information for surveillance-based marketing that the users have not consented to. Neither have users given consent to how personal data is transmitted to the companies’ partners.
