That is exactly what they did, the user used a credit card with their damn name on it, while Proton even allows you to send them cash money for the service.

The FBI filed a MLAT (Mutual Legal Assistance Treaty) request which was processed by the Swiss Federal Department of Justice and Police.

The Swiss gave a legal binding order to Proton to hand over information that they had, the only information that was handed over was the payment identifier.

I don’t get why people get hung up on a company complying with a legal order by their justice system, especially with Proton that could not hand over any more information.

The issue is them having any info to give out in the first place, it is a horrendous transgression for a shop that touts privacy as their thing.

Signal demonstrated that you can decouple payment info from account info and thus they ain’t got nothing to produce, MLAT or not. The least Proton coulda done is mimic that tech.

Proton allows payment with cash, so you can stay private, but if you use your credit card, your company will know and they have to store it in some way.

Not Protons fault in this case.