There is. I just doubt it matters a lot in terms of NeverAgain pledge if the organizations they're concerned about still likely see the traffic anyway. Real concern should go further to make sure that's impossible with right choice of software and services like other organizations (esp Tor and EFF) promote. It all has to be encrypted, anonymized, and immune to FISA orders to be trusted. Leads to rational conclusion to not trust it.
Like I said, I'm currently evaluating better options that preserve Gmail's benefits without the surveillance aspects. I've seen a lot of inexpensive, private products (including email) disappear over time with trouble for their users. The recent DDOS attacks also factor into my decision where only the groups with the biggest pipes can take it. Hence, using one such provider as a temporary storage/relay for overall email process. I'm curious what providers you know of have long track record for great uptime, great privacy policies, low cost, and mitigate DDOS attacks we've seen recently. No startups because they disappear all the time.
I've used Fastmail for a long time and I like it. It's only had a couple of brief downtimes in the many years I've used it, and no spam has ever gotten through. But I don't get a lot of email, and I'm not super paranoid about privacy or security (or I'd just run my own mail servers and use anonymous remailers, at the very least). I just try to avoid the huge dragnets that are Google, Facebook, Twitter, and other "social media".
I've heard good things about ProtonMail, but have not looked deeply in to it.
I'm not sure if there are many good, truly privacy-respecting means of communication on the internet, that aren't a gigantic pain in the ass and don't severely limit who you can securely communicate with (such as, for example, using GPG with a fully vetted web of trust). I also don't have much faith in encryption in the long run. As long as there's a record of your communication, it could be cracked at some point by someone. So I wouldn't place much trust in even the most paranoid digital communication, unless I was forced to. For anything really sensitive, I'd prefer non-electronic, more traditional and primitive means of communication.
" It's only had a couple of brief downtimes in the many years I've used it, and no spam has ever gotten through."
Appreciate the feedback. Looking more and more like what I'll switch to as interim solution.
"For anything really sensitive, I'd prefer non-digital, more traditional and primitive means of communication."
This is what high-security engineer Clive Robinson and I been recommending for years now. The only exception is one-time pads on air-gapped machines if you can exchange and protect the pads. The OTP version of Tinfoil Chat combined with that would have very, strong INFOSEC. Still prefer personal communications or messages through trusted people.
Note: The elites that scheme against us all have kept their secrets using couriers and physical meetings with people of aligned incentives. Most effective model of private communication in history. Add bug sweeps or other mitigations these days.
It doesn't have to involve physical meetings. If you look at the history of pre-electronic secret communication, I think many of those methods could still be very effective -- as long as you haven't been singled out for surveillance by a powerful adversary, of course. I'm talking about security for ordinary, privacy-conscious people here.
Like I said, I'm currently evaluating better options that preserve Gmail's benefits without the surveillance aspects. I've seen a lot of inexpensive, private products (including email) disappear over time with trouble for their users. The recent DDOS attacks also factor into my decision where only the groups with the biggest pipes can take it. Hence, using one such provider as a temporary storage/relay for overall email process. I'm curious what providers you know of have long track record for great uptime, great privacy policies, low cost, and mitigate DDOS attacks we've seen recently. No startups because they disappear all the time.