How Fastmail Advocates for Privacy

Fastmail believes in a fairer internet—one that’s more considerate of people’s privacy.

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Fastmail values are at the heart of everything we do. We believe in treating our customers—and their data—with the respect they deserve. Our team is passionate about ethical technology and the duty of care we have to our customers.

This commitment extends beyond our products—our company is proof that you can have a successful business without sacrificing people’s privacy.

How we work towards a fairer internet

We are just one company, and while we can directly improve the lives of our customers, we can do more to create a better internet ecosystem. We work with people and organizations around the world to make this a reality:

• We lead internet standards work (JMAP, JSContact, Calendaring work, reactions to email, DKIM).
• We contribute heavily to open source (Cyrus IMAP mail server, Overture JS library, DKIM, and other Perl libraries).
• We participate in and host industry standards groups (CalConnect for calendaring and scheduling, M3AAWG for mail anti-abuse, and IETF for standards improvement and creation).

Our actions for meaningful privacy change

A fairer internet extends beyond improvements in technical standards: it’s also about creating a more ethical platform for digital citizens to talk, learn, play, shop and work.

We believe that we have the responsibility, and the capacity, to encourage change for the better. We also know it takes more than one voice to produce systemic change and so we are members and supporters and signatories to a number of different organizations that are all advancing data privacy and data protection.

We add our name to industry calls for action.

• We were one of a broad coalition of organizations, businesses, and individuals demanding an end to surveillance advertising.

We provide financial and in-kind support to civil advocacy groups:

• Digital Rights Watch
• Electronic Frontiers Australia
• Australian Privacy Foundation

We provide feedback to the government on proposed legislation:

• Through our membership with the Communications Alliance: an industry body for telecommunications and related organizations in Australia.
• Directly through individual submissions

We carefully review the privacy policies of companies we do business with as part of our due diligence. This has led to:

• Other companies changing their data storage and retention practices
• Other companies changing their privacy policies
• Other companies losing business because they weren’t able to meet our standards for data privacy.

We spread awareness and knowledge to help other businesses do better. Our staff gives talks at conferences, meetups, and to advisory boards on topics like:

• Practical Tech Ethics
• A primer on data privacy requirements and practices
• Data protection laws in Australia and around the world.
• Conducting a privacy impact analysis

Add your voice to ours

We can have a better digital world if we all work together. Join us in making a fairer, more respectful internet.

Here are four simple things you can do to promote privacy:

1. Ask your service providers who your data is shared with and how long they store it.
2. Vote with your wallet: if a business doesn’t respect your privacy, find another one that does.
3. Support advocacy groups. They’re an expert in policy and awareness campaigns, and they can only do their best work with more help. They appreciate any support you can provide, whether that’s with your skills or your donations.
4. Talk to your friends, family, and colleagues. Help them understand why data privacy matters and how they can help themselves.

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If you want to hear more about advocacy and the importance of digital privacy, listen to our conversation with Lucie Krahulcova on Digital Citizen.

If you’re looking to upgrade your privacy and productivity and join the best in email, go sign up for your free 30-day trial of Fastmail!