20 years ago Gmail revolutionized email. It's time for a new revolution!

Gmail’s birth and rise to fame

What people thought was an April Fools joke, turned out to become the world’s most used email platform globally. On the 1st of April 2004, Google co-founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin sent out a press release – and they were not kidding. While Gmail at first glance appeared to be too good to be true, it became in fact the most popular email service.

The release of Gmail, had people around the world in disbelief – it was free, and offered 1 gigabyte of storage per account. This was something unheard of at the time, so how could it be true? In the early 2000s Yahoo and Microsoft were leading the market, and users could store around 30 to 60 emails before running out of storage (crazy to think, right?). Gmail then came along and allowed users to store around 13,500 emails before storage ran out. Gmail allowed users 250 to 500 times more mail storage for free. So fair enough, it did sound too good to be true.

But the generous storage wasn’t everything on offer, Gmail also revolutionized email in terms of features. The new email provider had a search function allowing users to conveniently search for past emails, and it automatically threaded email communications on the same topic, allowing users to read emails as a single conversation.

The launch of Google’s Gmail in 2004, changed and shocked the email industry forever. It was the perfect next addition to second Google’s search engine. Following Gmail, Google released Google Maps and Google Docs. Ever since, Alphabet’s Google has gone on to build an empire of Google tools that all work together seamlessly.

Fast forward to 20 years later and Gmail has an estimated 1.8 billion active accounts making it the most popular email provider globally.

Don’t Be Evil?

While Gmail has reached this major milestone, one must mention that Google hasn’t always operated ethically or in the best interests of user privacy. When Google started out with its services, its corporate conduct included the phrase “Don’t be evil”. When Google restructured to Alphabet in 2015, this claim was taken out of the company’s conduct and replaced with “Do the right thing”.

This demonstrates everything that is problematic with Google. While there have been many achievements and impressive products, at the same time Google has become a master manipulator at creating a privacy illusion while its business model is based on selling user data.

While you may love Gmail and the other Google tools – the unfortunate truth is that they love using you even more! Their love for your data is greater than ever.

By using their free products, you have in fact become the product.

Time for another revolution

Fortunately, today it is possible to stop all this data mining and tracking. Enter Tuta Mail, the email provider that is here to lead another revolution, one where privacy and security are indisputable. It’s time not just for another revolution, but for a better web – because you deserve it!

Tuta(nota) was launched with a small but mighty and motivated team of four in 2014, and has now reached a major milestone – Tuta recently turned 10!. Along with reaching this impressive milestone, Tuta now has an expanding team of around 30 employees, a brand new office in Munich, and our services - Tuta Mail, Tuta Contacts and Tuta Calendar - are being used by 10 million people around the world.

At Tuta we are setting the gold standard, and represent what email should be – a way to communicate privately and securely.

So, if you’re tired of Gmail and its unethical practices now is the perfect time to ditch your Gmail account and sign up for a FREE Tuta Mail account.

Tuta is every thing Gmail forgot about – Privacy: Gmail does very little in terms of protecting the privacy of its users. Tuta Mail on the other hand, comes with no ads, no tracking, it’s end-to-end encrypted, and offers its users maximum privacy.

In 2014, Tutanota revolutionized the level of security for email with the release of the first encrypted email client in the world. And we haven’t stopped there. Our mission at Tutanota (now Tuta) is to create the most secure email and calendar service to make sure that your data stays safe and private. So as Tutanota has become Tuta, we are excited that upon our tenth birthday we have launched the first post-quantum encryption protocol for email. We are innovation leaders in secure communication and we are revolutionizing the security and privacy of your emails!

As we’ve released products, grown our team of freedom fighters, and shaken the email world – we have stayed true to our ethics. We don’t need to write “Don’t Be Evil” into our code of conduct because it’s in our DNA. Everyone of our team feels very passionate about people’s human right to privacy and works hard to create a better web; one where privacy is the default. Now it’s ten years since the launch of Tutanota, and we still don’t put profits first because Tuta users and their right to privacy will forever be our priority.

Over a ten year period Tuta has achieved a lot and has had many successes! With the impressive launch of post-quantum encryption to mark 10 years, we have a lot more in development and can’t wait to see how we have revolutionized email when we reach 20 years.

Features paid for with privacy

While Tuta Mail can not match – and may never match – Gmail in terms of features or free storage space, we have something much more valuable to offer: your right to privacy.

We can easily admit that Google’s empire of feature-rich apps, productivity tools, and services which all work so seamlessly together, make life much easier. And what makes it all seem so much nicer and appealing is that Google lets you use all these apps for free. So sure, why wouldn’t you use their products? For many Gmail is their beloved go-to email provider, and they’ve had it for years, so why change now? But unfortunately, as Gmail gets older, Google continues to grow and their hunger to profit off their ad-based business model continues to succeed – their success is greatly due to surveillance of you – the product.

Google, just the same as Meta and Microsoft are masters at deceiving the user. They grow and rake in billions of revenue through abusing user data. This is then backed by their cover up marketing campaigns and the release of ‘privacy’ focused features. A prime example, currently being played out in court is Google’s Incognito Mode: This privacy-focused feature to browse the web privately has been found to not be private at all and it has deceived millions of people around the world for years.

No one is excluded

The scary thing is that when it comes to using big tech services like Gmail or Google Docs, or Facebook and Instagram, no one is protected – they do not care about the age of the user. This raises major concern as children and teenager privacy stands risk of being violated. A major move in the right direction was Denmark, Germany and the Dutch’s decision to ban the use of Google services like email and cloud within schools due to it being incompliant with the EU’s GDPR data privacy regulations. While the EU has strict data protection laws, and actively protects its citizens, this unfortunately isn’t a reality for people in other parts of the world like the USA, India and China.

If it’s free, you are the product

Every time you search something on Google, watch your favorite blogger on YouTube, or search for cafes in your area – all of this data is collected and sold to advertisers, and in return you are ad-targeted with unbearable amounts of annoying, and often invasive ads, even in your Gmail account. Alphabet’s Google can afford to keep their products free because your data is worth billions to them and it can harvest them easily via their search engine dominance. This is the current sad reality of the internet - big tech puts profits first and disregards any need for users’ data protection. Luckily, we live in a day and age where people are becoming more aware of these wrong doings and choose encrypted products like Tuta Mail and Tuta Calendar.

As they say, if it’s free you are the product

While this may sound odd coming from Tuta - a privacy focused email provider that offers free email accounts, we can assure you that while we offer a free option along with paid subscription accounts, our Tuta Mail users are certainly not our product.

At Tuta, we believe that privacy is a human right and should be a default when it comes to the internet and email which is why we don’t and will never stop offering free privacy-focused products. We are able to offer these limited versions for free as a huge community of privacy enthusiasts chooses to support a better web by upgrading to our paid plans – which in turn also have much more to offer than the free version like more storage space, custom domain support, unlimited email address for custom domains, and more.

As the quote goes, “Be the change you wish to see in the world” this is exactly what we at Tuta are doing.

Based in Germany, Tuta is fully open-source and GDPR compliant. But above this, it has set a standard higher than what is required by the EU. With Tuta, the user’s privacy comes first, and unlike Gmail our users are not the product. That’s why the whole mailbox is end-to-end encrypted by default. With a dedicated team of experts thinking ahead, Tuta Mail has already launched a quantum-safe encryption protocol for email.

Join Tuta as we continue to fight to be the change we wish to see in the world – one that protects you and your right to privacy. Sign up for a free encrypted mailbox now.