You're free to make your own choices. Schmidt (and Google) make no such promise. Use ProtonMail and DDG if you care so much, others will use Google, life moves on. No one is coercing anyone else.

> No one is coercing anyone else.

Specifically because Schmidt made a career as a lobbyist for privacy erosion, I think he's open to criticism on this basis, even if he is not guilty of coercion.

If it were some random person who was just developing a product I would agree with you to leave well enough alone, but I think the lobbying angle is enough to clear the bar of "theses actions should be publicly scrutinized".

What anti-privacy lobbying are you referencing?

I don't know specifically, I just know he was Google's top lobbyist and their business model depends on a certain privacy law landscape.

"No one is coercing anyone else" - in a way they are. As a software developer I don't think I have the choice not to use one of the big clouds. Protonmail and DDG I do use, but I can't use Hetzner instead of AWS or GCE if I want to remain competitive. (Offtopic: I am actually starting a new project and this is what I'm struggling with.)

The companies aren't the ones that are the problems here if you're worried about the clouds here and privacy.

It is the United States government, their laws, and enforcement.

My point isn't that he's coercing. He isn't. I said that clearly. My point is that he's being disingenuous.

Edit: for the record, I did switch off of gmail too :)