Business Insider reports on Silent Circle’s shutdown of its encrypted e-mail service based on the claim that e-mail is “fundamentally broken from a privacy perspective.” Meanwhile, the owner of now-defunct e-mail service provider Lavabit says he’s stopped using e-mail completely. And legal analysis site Groklaw is shutting down because of the threat of NSA spying. Last year, Canadian startup SurfEasy asked students at Harvard Business School to help it come up with a marketing plan for its Internet privacy product, but it wasn’t clear how it would convince users to pay for privacy enhancement when so many Internet services are free. However, NSA revelations have seemingly alleviated some of those concerns. An open source software project aims to give users control over their e-mail data, and a new free app deletes sent messages and prevents screen grabbing, among other privacy protections.
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