Additionally, the types of activity that Google tracks is even more encompassing across devices and operating systems when you have a Gmail address and you use it to create accounts for various services - even if you’re not using Google’s Chrome browser. Are you getting email newsletters, special offers or political fundraising calls that you never signed up for? This is a given, whether you’re using a social platform, shopping online, signing a petition, donating to a cause you care about or signing up for a different newsletter that you’re actually interested in, or any other activity that requires you to provide an email address.

People who are less tech-savvy or part of age groups with less experience navigating the internet tend to leave even more breadcrumbs and are usually more susceptible to ads, fake news and other types of manipulation. It’s not just commercial messaging that targets you based on your digital profile, but even news and entertainment content. This digital profile is put together from data gathered by most of the tech companies whose products you use and then sold to and by data brokers.

Data brokers include credit reporting companies, people-finding websites, and many analytics and marketing companies. They operate in a sprawling, unregulated ecosystem and are rightfully being called "the middlemen of surveillance capitalism". They’re a multi-billion dollar industry with a lack of transparency and accountability, with an FTC report concluding that they "collect consumers’ personal information and resell or share that information with others". But the fact that it’s a well-known problem doesn’t make it easy to regulate away, with Big Tech companies opposing anti-trust legislation, even by posing as grass-roots groups.

Using a Tutanota account - as your primary email and for your user profiles on apps and sites - will make it more difficult for data brokers to aggregate data about you. What’s more, the alias feature included with all our paid accounts helps you quickly deactivate alias email addresses that start getting unwanted emails.

Just like with social media platforms, with most email providers free email isn’t really free. You already know this because of the cross-platform ads that you get served: Your attention is the product.

More and more people are prioritizing privacy. Businesses are increasingly concerned with cloud security and other digital security issues. At the same time, an increasing number of consumers say "businesses should be doing more to actively protect their data" and they report feeling "concerned, confused" and a "lack of control over their personal information". About 6 in 10 adults "think their personal data is less secure now, that data collection poses more risks than benefits, and believe it is not possible to go through daily life without being tracked" by either companies or government or both. And they are not wrong.

But this is not how the internet was meant to work and it doesn’t have to be this way. It is our mission to make it better and this is what drives every feature at Tutanota.

Privacy means freedom of speech and freedom of thought. But it also means refusing to have your behavior commodified by surveillance capitalists and it means safety from exploitation, manipulation and doxxing.

At Tutanota, we believe that business models based on data collection and data exploitation must be stopped. We fight for a different internet. One where privacy by design is the foundation.

Being able to sign up for email without a phone number is a great first step. But even privacy-focused apps typically use Google Push and Google reCAPTCHA. At Tutanota, even our free encrypted email on Android does not rely on Google, but uses our own push notification service and our own open-source CAPTCHA. Furthermore Tutanota’s secure password reset and innovative search on encrypted data are additional features that ensure that not even we can gain access to your data. At the same time, Premium accounts come with many more benefits on top, making Tutanota the best email service all-around.

Tutanota is a freemium email service with a business model sustained by people who value their right to privacy enough to upgrade their account to a paid subscription. In return, they benefit from a lot of extra features as Premium, Teams or Pro users.

Explore all the features and price plans.

Our Team sets us apart, too: Our founders have a long track record of fighting for data independence and privacy rights. We own the company, so we don’t need to prioritize making profits for shareholders at the expense of our users’ best interests, like other companies often do. We own our infrastructure and share with you our Transparency report and every Privacy policy detail.

Find out more about our background.