Infomaniak transitions to a foundation model to protect user data privacy

Sadly when you get to use their products they may ask you for Passport/ID and a selfie through kCheck[0] like they're a bank, as you can see at the app page[0].

In their website[1] you can read about their true "privacy" behavior:

> identity verification procedure may be triggered in the following cases (non-exhaustive list):

> - forgetting an Infomaniak account password (user account)

> - forgetting a login email address

> - deactivation of double authentication (2FA)

> - unlocking an Infomaniak account

> - during the first transfer of revenue for the product Ticketing

> - when ordering a product (suspicion of spam or fraud, brand name, etc.)

The same page also says the process may require mandatory geolocation, choosing ID card or passport, photographing the document, and taking a selfie with it.

[0]: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.infomaniak...

[1]: https://www.infomaniak.com/en/support/faq/2418/getting-start...

This is a good news. I moved my domains from DNSimple to Infomaniak last year, as part of my rely-less-on-US-infra-and-services strategy. I chose them for their dedication to privacy, ethics and transparency. This change reassures me this was a good choice.

For those who are/were considering Infomaniak and are wondering about the quality of service: I use it for DNS only. Their UI is less than ideal but not bad once you get used to it. The service is solid, never had any issues.

Migrated my email servers in 20 minutes yesterday from OVH (their MXs does not support IPv6, and Infomaniak was less expensive for basic email hosting), I found the documentation and the diagnostic tools of the DNS zone very clear, was a no brainer to add DKIM, SPF and DMARC (hey generate the records for you, just have to cpy paste in your zone manager and refresh the diagnostic to get a status after propagation), and autodiscovery and autoconfiguration of email clients are a nice bonus !

Overall a great experience, can recommend !

"foundation model" a somewhat confusing phrase in the title here, given the majority of HN front page.

> Concretely, this means that no takeover of the company is possible without the Foundation’s approval. Even if Boris were to pass away, even if an irresistible investor came knocking, control of Infomaniak remains in the hands of a structure dedicated to its mission.

This reads quite naive; if you want a legal entity to be ideologically driven then it needs to be controlled by a small number of ideologues. Committee-like structures tend to mean revert to a reasonable position that bows to financial pressure. Structures guarantee longevity, but the ideological underpinnings of the that longevity tend to stray.

One of the major lessons of political history is it isn't possible to structure your way out of a situation where there is an incentive to do something. If Boris Sienenthaler has proven to have good judgement it is a much better idea leaving him in charge than re-rolling dice. Any institution quickly becomes a corrupt shadow of what it was originally envisioned as once the original people involved move on.

Reading this, it sounds very like what Ingvar Kamprad did with IKEA - although the structure is slightly different, the intent feels the same.

I work at Inter IKEA, which is actually a franchisor - the structure is a family run foundation sitting at the top, below the group that owns the concept and value chain, then the retailer licence to hold a franchise (https://www.inter.ikea.com/en/this-is-inter-ikea-group/the-i...)

After I moved away from Google services as much as I could (https://www.mac-vicar.eu//posts/2020-10-20-migrating-away-go...), and after some years on mailbox.org, which I did not enjoy, I ended moving to Infomaniak.

The experience has been nothing but awesome. I love the Android clients (mail, calendar sync) and I am also using their AI services for light tasks. Management UI is a bit confusing but not the worst I deal with.

Glad to see this move. I am a fan!.

This is awesome news.

I wonder if it has any impact on Infomaniak's earlier position on Switzerland's privacy laws, e.g.:

https://www.tomsguide.com/computing/vpns/infomaniak-breaks-r...

I recently moved one of my boxes from Mailfence to Infomaniak. It works, but their product/pricing strategy is really hard to understand (my ksuite vs ksuite pro). Their AI is not helpful in explaining the differences. Also their UI opens new browser tab for almost every menu page. After dealing with these issues it works quite well.

I wonder if this move is similar to what Home Assistant project did.

I moved my domains and mailboxes from Gandi to Infomaniak when Gandi went from "no bullshit" to full shit hole after TWS bought them. The service is top quality and their customers service was really helpful in transferring my third-level .name domain which has always been a hassle. This news makes me even more glad I chose Infomaniak.

I thought the founder was against privacy. There were discussions last year or so about the Swiss (anti-)privacy laws. I don't know what to think about it now.

I use Infomaniak for personal domains, along with DNS. I really want to like them. But their management UI is just... horrible? Also the product offering feels increasingly unfocused, with kSuite and kDrive.

Big fan of this move. My feelings on Infomaniak slightly soured though when they sent me an email trumpeting their "sovereign AI" and offering some free credits, so I tried it out - docs said OpenAI compatible API, but failed to mention that not all of it actually works - I emailed support and they replied with "Unfortunately, we do not provide support for our AI Service, as the solution is highly unmanaged and uses our API."

I have no idea what this means, but it certainly made me wonder how much of the rest of their offering has no support and put an instant halt on us moving the company over from GSuite or whatever it's called this week.

It came into my email earlier this morning, and I was a bit confused, because I had just woken up, but a coffee later everything was clear. I bought a domain there not long ago, mainly to support European companies, which was straightforward with no problems at all.

What is it with company blogs that outright refuse to link to their product pages?

I've received an email about this with the subject: "An (important) message from the founder of Infomaniak"

Putting "important" in there, even in parentheses, is highly disrespectful, as it implies the necessity to be read immediately, whereas in reality this doesn't have any impact on customers at all.

Infomaniak overall has a decent product offering, but I've noticed repeatedly incompetence and manipulative behaviour such as this from them and am considering moving away entirely.

If you claim to be ethically superior, I'll hold you to higher standards.