The company you’re mentioning in the end is Tresorit, right? If so, they still do get some kudos for running a pretty solid end to end encrypted storage service. Their whitepaper checked out to me and their heavy focus on business users instead of consumer seems to attract less of the advocate types of users that ended ProtonMail in this weeks situation to begin with
As far as I know Tresorit has actual offices and staff in Zurich, Switzerland. They also appeared clear to me in the past that they have multiple offices around the world (I listened to a presentation from them recently at a conference).
I was referring to pcloud and pcloud also have an office in Switzerland. But similar applies to Tresorit I believe, thy just have it for tax and marketing reasons.
The issue is both Tresorit and pcloud store the data outside of Switzerland. If you start using pcloud on the expectation that it's stored in Switzerland you are wrong, it will be stored in Texas or in Luxemburg. So, how can Swiss law really apply once it really matter? And secondly, who cares if it's Swiss law, it's nothing special with that.
People seem to believe there is some kind of banking secrecy that applies to data storage. On top of that, the Swiss banking secrecy does actually not exist anymore.
And looking at the Terms & Conditions from pcloud, it says:
"If a European Union user of the Site or Services is located outside of Switzerland, then, for the purposes of any claim or action relating to these Terms, the Privacy Policy, the Site, or any Services, the applicable jurisdiction will be the courts that are located in the territory of residence of such European User."
So what is the point to highlight they are in Switzerland, if Swiss laws do not apply if you do not live in Switzerland? It's just false marketing.
I got you - I was just replying to kylehotchkiss. Either way, if the data is properly client-side encrypted, it shouldn't really matter much where the data is stored, since they would need access to your device to decrypt the data. So I don't see how this is an issue.
My expectation here would typically be that the company itself is governed by a stable, democratic government. It matters, because different legislations can impose different requirements (see recent changes in Australia for example).
Yes, banking secrecy has nothing to do with this and doesn't really apply, since that is more about someone not spilling your information, while here you already ensure on your device that the data is not visible to anyone.
I think you are right - it's a marketing element, but most companies do that, don't they? See for example Apple with "Designed in California", which is really just trying to not only say "Made in China". People have known associations with certain countries (such as Switzerland), which are used for marketing, yes.
