Fastmail offers EU data region(www.fastmail.com)
213 pointsby groomlake5 hours ago28 comments
  • jacquesm3 hours ago
    EU data regions are a reflexive action by companies that try to hold on to their EU customers (and more and more are leaving, surprisingly the larger ones seem to be leading here). Realize that as long as you are still hosted on US owned infrastructure or that if there are US (or: five-eyes) owned companies anywhere in the stack your data can still be forcibly pulled and often without you being aware that this happened. There are only very few such stacks that are 100% owned by EU entities.
    • ffsm83 hours ago
      > your data can still be forcibly pulled and often without you being aware that this happened

      as a german i feel the urge to point out that this technically also applies to european companies... With more hurdles for the US, but still technically applicable

      • throwawayffffas32 minutes ago
        I am almost positive things are not the way they were and requests for data access especially if the subjects background is "suspect" are more highly scrutinized.

        And as the Americans are choosing to interfere in European domestic politics and trample their own laws and constitution the more scrutiny their requests will get.

      • jacquesman hour ago
        That's true but the EU still has a - mostly - functioning legal system. See 'Schrems' and other lawsuits that came out as they should have.
        • perks_12a minute ago
          Take a look at how they play with regards to chat control. The EU is just the same corrupt BS like D.C., only with a lot more virtue signaling.
      • usernomdeguerre2 hours ago
        True, I think the calculus is more about who you think is more trustworthy than what tools they have to damage you.
      • slow_typistan hour ago
        Especially if European companies have an office and significant share of customers in the US.
    • V__3 hours ago
      For anyone curious, it's the CLOUD act:

      > The CLOUD Act primarily amends the Stored Communications Act (SCA) of 1986 to allow federal law enforcement to compel U.S.-based technology companies via warrant or subpoena to provide requested data stored on servers regardless of whether the data are stored in the U.S. or on foreign soil.

      [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CLOUD_Act

      • samudrijan2 hours ago
        The point of control is Congress, until we stop electing corpratist politicians, we will continue to get bad legislation.
      • braiamp3 hours ago
        Which wouldn't matter where the data is located, so I don't think that this is the reason Fastmail is doing it, because a savvy enough company would know that the problem is that the company is US based.
        • kid643 hours ago
          They're Australian
          • perpetuallunch15 minutes ago
            That’s not going to help anyone.

            The Five Eyes is an Anglosphere intelligence alliance comprising Australia, Canada, New Zealand, the United Kingdom, and the United States. These countries are party to the multilateral UKUSA Agreement, a treaty for joint cooperation in signals intelligence.

            https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Five_Eyes

            • JAlexoid6 minutes ago
              Even being stored in EU doesn't preclude your data from being targeted by signals intelligence. Which is different than requiring US based companies to provide non-US data to American government.

              Does fastmail have a US presence? If no - then they're not bound at all by US jurisdiction.

          • petcat3 hours ago
            Australian companies are also subject to the USA Cloud Act. As is the UK, with Canada coming on board soon too.

            Even the entire EU is in the process of negotiating the same agreement.

            https://www.justice.gov/archives/opa/pr/united-states-and-ca...

            https://www.justice.gov/archives/opa/pr/justice-department-a...

            • jorvi6 minutes ago
              That is plain wrong, and on top of that, the CLOUD act doesn't really solve anything because if the order to obtain data is legal for the US arm but illegal for the EU arm, releasing the data from say Ireland to the US would immediately lead to steep monetary and legal penalties for the EU arm.
            • yborg2 hours ago
              Your linked information doesn't indicate anywhere that Australia or any other foreign government is subject to US law. The latter states that negotiation with the EU on this topic was suspended in 2019.

              Things have changed. With Chinese law in regards to data within Chinese jurisdiction a long-standing thing and an unfriendly American government potentially in power for an extended period, other countries are realizing the importance of data sovereignty.

              • petcat2 hours ago
                https://www.justice.gov/criminal/criminal-oia/cloud-act-agre...

                > The latter states that negotiation with the EU on this topic was suspended in 2019.

                Dated 2023:

                > Justice Department and European Commission Announces Resumption of U.S. and EU Negotiations on Electronic Evidence in Criminal Investigations

                The negotiations are still ongoing. Canada is further along than the EU.

          • wolfi13 hours ago
            isn't there this five eyes thingy?
    • DarrenDevan hour ago
      EU sovereign clouds are taking off right now - especially when it comes to sensitive data (government, healthcare, etc.). Lots of players moving into the space. The common denominator - nothing touches the US.

      AWS, Azure, GCP, Oracle, Schwarz Digits, SAP

      • eastonan hour ago
        Requiring that you believe those companies that they won’t hand the keys over to the US at the first ask.

        Like, the critical problem with the AWS sovereign pitch is that you must believe that they won’t give the keys to the US, and they also won’t give the source code that’s hosted in the US to the government either for them to find vulnerabilities in. I don’t know if that’s good enough unless you just need the data to stay in the EU and you don’t care if another country sees it.

        I know they probably did some work on it (what if primary AWS goes rogue and the EU entity must work without it) but I don’t know if they explained how they’re safe to the public.

        • jacquesman hour ago
          The harder problem here is that any real EU sovereign platform would have to come with ironclad guarantees that it isn't going to be directly or indirectly sold to a US party. And when enough customers move that marketshare is affected the bags with money tempting shareholders will get larger and larger.
      • jacquesman hour ago
        You can strike at least four of those.
    • microtonal2 hours ago
      Yeah, this does absolutely not solve the CLOUD Act issues. However, it is good to look at what the ramifications of the CLOUD Act is for e-mail:

      - The US could request your data. You probably shouldn't use e-mail for anything sensitive anyway for many reasons. E-Mail was traditionally not encrypted and I think that many servers still allow plain-text communication. The protocols are old and there are all kinds of downgrade attacks. Aside from that, even if your service does not fall under the CLOUD Act, you are probably f*cked anyway, because most people you communicate with are using services that fall under the CLOUD Act.

      - The US can force the provider to block your account. The workarounds are: regularly backup your e-mail (easy for services that offer IMAP) and, most importantly, use a domain with an extension that is not under the control of a US (or probably five eyes) registrar.

      Use an E2E-encrypted messenger with perfect forward secrecy, etc. for most personal communication.

    • kisamoto2 hours ago
      Does this still apply if there are separate legal entities for US & EU operations? Take Hetzner as an example. They have a separate US company to deal with their US data center. Would their EU servers be vulnerable to the CLOUD Act?
      • jacquesman hour ago
        Well, for sure they can pressure them but I highly doubt Hetzner would break the law in Europe to satisfy the US government, they are a lot more to lose here than there. I realize that that is not proof.
    • BrandoElFollito14 minutes ago
      The French head of Microsoft ctor not, under oath, say that Microsoft can guarantee sovereignty. This is the evidence that until you have a EU company, under EU rules and not present in the US at all, you cannot have sovereignty.
    • rufasterisco2 hours ago
      Can you point me towards some resources that show EU customers moving?

      Not that I don’t trust the statement, I just would like to know more.

    • amelius2 hours ago
      How does Apple handle it?
      • xnickb2 hours ago
        Why would apple care? Eu is what a quarter of their business? And where exactly will those people move? They're locked into the Apple infra.
    • mrtesthah3 hours ago
      Ok, but Fastmail is an Australian company based in Melbourne.
      • petcat3 hours ago
        Australia and the US entered into a bilateral agreement in 2024 which made Australian companies subject to the US CLOUD Act.

        https://www.justice.gov/criminal/criminal-oia/cloud-act-agre...

      • toomuchtodo3 hours ago
        As a FastMail customer who spends a portion of the year in the US, I am happy to pay to move my data to the EU region, even if they cannot yet fully guarantee all my data will remain outside of US access at this time. Defense and mitigations in depth, over time. We must always start somewhere, and perfect is never the target (as it does not exist).
        • tmgldnan hour ago
          Agree - small steps always positive here
      • OJFord3 hours ago
        But whose cloud infrastructure do they use? (I don't know, but it might likely be AWS, GCP, or Azure.)
        • microtonal2 hours ago
          That it described in the linked post:

          We’ve installed our own servers, co-located in a secure facility in Amsterdam, set up by our own engineers.

        • calvinmorrison2 hours ago
          None. It's racked and stacked old school
    • calvinmorrison2 hours ago
      Fastmail is an Australian company
      • gib444an hour ago
        And hosted on US infrastructure, satisfying the "or" clause in their post
        • sodapopcan14 minutes ago
          The article says they installed their own servers, though. What am I missing here?
    • selectively3 hours ago
      [dead]
    • atmosx2 hours ago
      That’s true and Fastmail runs on AWS. But it’s a start and a “feature” many have requested for years. It’s funny because the HQ and I believe their workforce is located in Australia.
      • jph0030 minutes ago
        Not only is that not true, but in fact FastMail predates AWS by some years.

        Source: I founded FastMail.

      • chrismorgan2 hours ago
        Fastmail has never used AWS, and this article is pretty clear about how they have always used their own hardware and traditional colocation.

        Fastmail used to be based in Melbourne only, but after the Pobox merger it ended up with an office in Philadelphia too. No idea how the balance of things is between the offices now.

        • atmosx2 hours ago
          That’s interesting, I thought they were hosted on AWS. Thanks for sharing.
      • preisschildan hour ago
        But how is it actually "a start" or improves anything at all? It doesnt matter where the "physical location" of the data is. It matters who has access to it.
      • calvinmorrison2 hours ago
        Fastmail runs on its own infra.
  • tumdum_3 minutes ago
    Or you can just use any of the actual European companies (I’m using Tuta).

    https://european-alternatives.eu/category/email-providers

  • altairprime3 hours ago
    EU folks, note the warnings threaded throughout this post: this is not currently any sort of panacea against US or AU data hosting risks, but it will make your data noticeably closer to home. Fastmail (Australia) merged with Pobox (Philadelphia) resulting in a complex tri-national law/risk surface when the EU is involved, so go in eyes wide open having read this in full. That everyone will overinterpret “EU data region” to mean “for privacy” here until reading the article is completely understandable; I empathize, having done the same.
  • robin_reala3 hours ago
    Posted on the previous submission for this: it’s a good start, but from the article:

    If what you need is a guarantee that your data remains only in the EU, we don’t have that, and we’d rather tell you directly than let you assume otherwise.

    • intothemild3 hours ago
      Wow they completely missed the ball on why people want reassurances that their data stays in the EU
      • fodkodrasz2 hours ago
        For me this is already a better value proposition, as less value add happens in the US. With the US being a perpetrator in trade war against the EU, even this matters. Everything counts, in large amounts...
      • xnickb2 hours ago
        I think they just know what they can and can't guarantee.
        • linux26472 hours ago
          Agreed. I imagine they’ll announce an EU-only option later once they get more EU infrastructure in place
    • calvinmorrison2 hours ago
      One needs multiple data centers in europe for backup and DR, sounds like they have one
  • Cider998616 minutes ago
    Jurisdiction is an outdated way of looking at things. End-to-end encryption is what actually matters.
  • cube22223 hours ago
    Nice, as a European customer, I appreciate this.

    Side note, I moved to Fastmail a couple years ago, and so far I’ve been very happy with it! The Gmail migrator works great, too.

  • superq2 hours ago
    EU data regions are based on the insanely flawed idea that data is:

    * a physical thing that can only live in one place

    * not copyable

    * can be 'contained'.

    The whole thing reeks of bureaucratic 'best practices' that just aren't.

    Even worse than that, trying to keep email restricted to the EU (or anywhere else) means that you effectively wouldn't be able to communicate with anyone in a different region, which is kinda the whole point.

    Why not just make your own internet next? and then you can disconnect from everyone else who is trying to hack you. Just pull your network plug.

    Email itself is hopelessly insecure by design anyway. Not just metadata when you are E2EE everything inside the envelope, but even basic vulns like downgrade attacks are simple because it's literally a violation of the RFCs (so you're not spec-compliant) to require TLS or any other encryption.. Why? because requiring modern crypto might interfere with deliverability and backwards compatibility. The real, deeper reason is that email is from a kinder, simpler time (well, at least simpler) and the design goals were never updated to keep up with the times.

    Email is what we have. Just understand its flaws and then use other tools where you can. And who cares where your email lives - it's too easy to break anyway.

    • preisschildan hour ago
      This is not an EU law anyways, this is snakeoil companies acting like having their data located in the EU will change who has access to it and will make it "GDPR compliant" (it wont since the CLOUD ACT still applies)
      • plqbfbvan hour ago
        > The CLOUD Act authorizes bilateral agreements between the United States and trusted foreign partners that will make both nations’ citizens safer, while at the same time ensuring a high level of protection of those citizens’ rights.

        I think the keywords are "trusted" and "citizens' rights". US burned a lot of trust in the last few years, and what's happening with ICE doesn't really scream "citizens' rights" either. I can see why many "trusted foreign partners" would now think twice rather than help out the US compared to just 5 years ago.

        As a EU person, I'd really like to not have ties with US when possible, and I'd really like to foster the economy of non-US alternatives.

  • plqbfbvan hour ago
    As a customer, thank you, Fastmail. I recall reading a few months back that this was rumored to be in the works, glad it panned out.
  • rzerowan2 hours ago
    Seeing a lot of detail in the comments about the CLOUD act which applies as they(fastmail) themselves have an equivalent that was signed between USgov and Australia.

    The more concerning issue as far as Australian based tech is The Assistance and Access Act 2018 which

    "...permits government enforcement agencies to force businesses to hand over user info and data even though it’s protected by cryptography.

    If firms don’t have the power to intercept encrypted data for authorities, they will be forced to create tools to allow law enforcement or government to have access to their users’ data."

    As far as i know this has not been challenged or walked back and with the rise of ChatControl like laws doesnt seem it will.

    • chrismorgan2 hours ago
      The Assistance and Access Act is completely irrelevant to Fastmail, because Fastmail doesn’t offer end-to-end encryption. Fastmail was always subject to the Telecommunications Act, which allows Australian police access with warrants, and Fastmail has always made it clear that it complies with legal warrants.
  • crossroadsguy2 hours ago
    I have never understood their 50+10 GB storage as the starting plan. Anyone storing a lot of emails, please don't come at me screaming, but know that not everyone keeps every email and every attachment ever received right there in that email account (especially the attachments). For me, email is just communication i.e timed information, not data storage, except for very personal emails, and very very rare, some non-personal important emails. So some people do like to simply delete the emails they no longer need. Also their pricing almost feels like "unlimited storage" backup solutions mass pricing strategy.
    • tene80i2 hours ago
      You mean why isn’t there a cheaper tier than $5/mo? Not much to be gained by offering it, I would think.
      • 3eb7988a166344 minutes ago
        Even at cloud prices, 50GB of storage is ~$1/month. Offering an additional tier with pathetic storage to save $0.80 or whatever is muddling the offering.

        I guess they could offer a 0GB storage option that only operated as a relay?

  • greenleafone72 hours ago
    The article states that they do not offer any guarantee that my data will stay in the EU!

    I feel that that's the whole point. And the whole point of them making this article/advertisement.

    • petcat2 hours ago
      How could they possibly guarantee such a thing?

      Do you only send and receive emails with people in the EU?

      • monsieurbananaan hour ago
        At the moment all your data is still replicated in the US (they say it will change in the future, sure) and all the logs are also stored there, with no plans to change it or more details into what they contain.

        As of now there's no guarantee of... anything, really.

        Obviously if you decide to send an email to the US you're choosing to send your data there, that's a strawman.

      • preisschildan hour ago
        Its not about the people you send emails to, its about who has access to your entire mailbox.

        In the moment that would be the Trump Administration for example.

  • 3 hours ago
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  • PeterStuer3 hours ago
    Five Eyes country are subject to local data disclosure orders and gag clauses, forcing them to hand over user data that may then enter the shared intelligence pool
  • egorfine2 hours ago
    Can't wait to verify my age before reading emails!

    In all seriousness though, what are the chances Fastmail won't require KYC at some point? I have sent them a support request with that question and got a non-answer.

    PS: Am a paying customer for like a decade

  • victorbjorklundan hour ago
    Not more safe. Only safe way is to use a company not under US regulation.
  • I_am_tiberius3 hours ago
    And which company hosts the data? An American company like Aws, Azure, Google or a European company like OVH, Stackit?
    • fhdkweig3 hours ago
      The flagged/dead comment contains a copy of the entire page, but the relevant part is:

      > Built by us, not rented from someone else

      > We’ve installed our own servers, co-located in a secure facility in Amsterdam, set up by our own engineers. This new location is built to the same high standards as our existing infrastructure in Philadelphia and St Louis, with our own hardware and our own software — specified right down to the exact model of disks in each machine.

      > In all our locations, data is stored encrypted at rest inside locked racks, and managed by our in-house team. We don’t rent computing or management services from a big cloud provider and pass on their assurances. That’s how we’ve approached privacy, reliability, and performance for more than 25 years.

    • techpression3 hours ago
      > We’ve installed our own servers, co-located in a secure facility in Amsterdam, set up by our own engineers. This new location is built to the same high standards as our existing infrastructure in Philadelphia and St Louis, with our own hardware and our own software — specified right down to the exact model of disks in each machine.
  • rb6662 hours ago
    Finally! I have been asking for this since the US started to lose its mind. Great they are listening.
    • preisschildan hour ago
      But this is completely worthless, they still fall under the cloud act. Trump Admin still has access to your mailbox.
  • tamimio2 hours ago
    Does it matter much? From one side, you are still in the 14 eyes countries (in fact, I would trust a Chinese server if i am living in the west and vice versa), on another side, emails as a protocol was never meant to be secure or private, so deal with it as that, if you are after private or secure communication, choose a protocol that provides that, adding more stuff to emails will only complicate it further plus giving false sense of privacy/security, gpg will leak meta data, receiver email server/client might expose you too, among many gaps, so just avoid it. Still, make sure your email spf dkim dmarc etc are set properly and carry on.
  • lschueller2 hours ago
    If what you need is a guarantee that your data remains only in the EU, we don’t have that, and we’d rather tell you directly than let you assume otherwise.

    Is there an alternative that really keeps data in the EU? (And not only in the sense it serves a sales promotion)

    • atmosx2 hours ago
      Depends on the definition and your threat model but to make a very large story short; it’s email, others have copies (your gmail friends?). Metadata is public by default the body can be encrypted and encrypted at rest (comes with many limitations) and that’s the highest level of security you can realistically achieve.

      If that works fine if not, use another method of comm. Email wasn’t designed to be secure.

      • lschueller2 hours ago
        Thank you. Sure. In Europe the "euro stack" approach becomes more and more relevant. So, the issue is more a compliance topic in the way of making use of service provides, who are best-case "eu-headquartered", but at least with a guarantee that processing on my side stays within the european realm. Doesn't mean very little in a technical understanding of security, I agree.
    • 2 hours ago
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    • vzaliva2 hours ago
      I do not know any EU-only, but ProtonMail is in Switzerland.
      • petcat2 hours ago
        Proton is leaving Switzerland because of surveillance and privacy issues.

        > Because of legal uncertainty around Swiss government proposals to introduce mass surveillance — proposals that have been outlawed in the EU — Proton is moving most of its physical infrastructure out of Switzerland.

        https://proton.me/blog/lumo-ai

        They are moving to Germany, but will quickly find that they are going to face the same surveillance and privacy issues since the EU is in the process of negotiating a data sharing agreement under the US Cloud Act.

        https://www.justice.gov/archives/opa/pr/justice-department-a...

        • preisschild40 minutes ago
          That was 2023 before the 2nd Trump Admin and before the Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board that was supposed to be independent and protect against abuse has resigned.
  • kmfrk2 hours ago
    As a European and Fastmail user, this is great news.
  • atmosx2 hours ago
    Okay, that solves two problems for me. Great news.
  • sparkling2 hours ago
    To me, jurisdiction matters more than physical location. I'd rather be with a EU-operated service that stores data on a non-EU server, than a non-EU operator with a German/french datacenter.
  • KingOfCoders3 hours ago
    We offer EU data centers for customers that want their emails to stay in the EU but

    "Resilient replicas of your data will live in the US"

    ?

    • crossroadsguy2 hours ago
      The US data replicas will be resilient, and when the FBI asks your data to reveal things about itself, your data will refuse to reveal anything about itself in the characteristic resilient manner. That's why the mention of "resilient".
      • KingOfCoders2 hours ago
        How is that possible if the OS/drive/vault is backdoored? Could you elaborate?

        I think "resilient" just means "backup copy" and I do think (IANAL) it is illegal to destroy emails when asked for them in the US.

        Or was your comment ironic? Sorry, German, irony impaired.

  • varispeed2 hours ago
    Data is still compellable through US Cloud Act (and other provisions). If you want true EU data region, you should buy from a company without presence in the US.
  • Marciplan2 hours ago
    using cirrux.me and very happy with an actual EU hosted option (Team is Dutch)
  • jgeertsan hour ago
    [dead]
  • cjs_ac3 hours ago
    [flagged]
  • honeycrispy3 hours ago
    [flagged]
    • lrae2 hours ago
      You mean Chat Control 1.0 that was already in place from 2021 to April 2026 and allows for voluntary scanning for CSAM in unecrypted data through hash-matching for existing and indexed CSAM material?
    • flexagoon2 hours ago
      Chat Control 1.0 is a permanent extension of a temporary law that already existed a year ago, allowing the companies to scan your messages if they want to. Nothing changed since then.