Trump's election causes surge in new business for ProtonMail

New sign-ups double following Donald Trump's election as US president

Donald Trump's election victory in last week's US presidential election has cause a surged in sign-ups for ProtonMail, the encrypted email provider based in Switzerland.

The company's co-founder, Andy Yen, claims that new user sign-ups almost tripled the moment that Trump's victory was confirmed, and remain twice the standard rate a week later.

"Many of our new users have voiced a few common concerns both on Twitter and also in emails to us," claimed Yen in a blog posting.

He continued: "Given Trump's campaign rhetoric against journalists, political enemies, immigrants, and muslims, there is concern that Trump could use the new tools at his disposal to target certain groups. As the NSA currently operates completely out of the public eye with very little legal oversight, all of this could be done in secret."

However, the company was keen not to blame "The Donald" himself, describing that as "the easy way out".

It continued: "All Trump does is put a new face on the existing privacy problem, so now it concerns a segment of the population that previously didn't care as much.

"ProtonMail users have always come from both the left and right side of the political spectrum. Today, we are seeing an influx of liberal users, but ProtonMail has also long been popular with the political right, who were truly worried about big government spying, and the Obama administration having access to their communications. Now the tables have turned.

"The same terror the political right has experienced is now being felt in liberal bubbles such as Silicon Valley for the first time.

"The left is correct to be terrified of a Trump-led NSA snooping on their communications, especially since Silicon Valley giants like Google and Facebook can be forced to spy on users on behalf of Trump's NSA. However, this precedent was not set by Trump - he hasn't even taken office yet. The first major incident of a US tech giant being complicit in US government spying actually took place in 2015 under the Obama administration."

ProtonMail is based in Switzerland and claims to operate according to long-established Swiss principles of secrecy and strict neutrality. The company, recommended by NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden, was the target of a particularly aggressive distributed denial-of-service attack in November 2015.

"We do not take any position for or against Trump, nor any position for or against any particular country or government. We believe privacy is a universal value, so we do not take any sides," added Yen.