They even ask you to download their proprietary app and send them a picture of your actual ID:

https://www.infomaniak.com/en/support/faq/2144/blocked-order

privacy !== anonymity

> privacy !== anonymity

Why not?

With the same reasoning you could deny selling people food unless they show you their government ID.

Would you consider such an abomination a country where privacy still exists?

If you strip people from basic anonymity for no sane reason they have no privacy.

If all you want is to prevent people from signing up infinite accounts then have them solve a bazillion captchas or pay a token amount of cryptocurrency, but don't ask them to connect their account to completely unrelated private information.

Email operates independently of cell phone numbers, so it shouldn't be required to connect yours to your mail address.

I did not say you do not deserve anonymity. I simply disagreed with the OP who laughed at a possibilty of any kind of privacy unless complete anonymity was guaranteed. While not arguing regarding the validity of the proposition above, I simply wanted to highlight that those are two different concepts that have two different entries in a thesaurus.

Example everyone can relate to: when you go to a doctor, they look at your medical history and in most cases you need an appointment first. This means your visit is no longer anonymous. However, I think everyone agrees that you still deserve privacy with respect to the details of your visit.

Privacy is the control to choose what kind of things about yourself you would like to expose.

If that control is gone there is no privacy.

So there is no privacy in your home because someone somewhere knows who lives there?

I agree with what you say. The difference is that you consider a provider your adversary when it comes to the task of that control and I consider a GDPR-respecting company to be my partner in that attempt (yes, I know who Snowden is) to control [what kind of things about yourself you would like to expose].

> only

I vaguely remember Google making moves toward killing it, but last I tried it, Google Voice let you get a number without providing any ID whatsoever.

And only postpaid phone plans require ID in the US.

The context is Switzerland. In Switzerland, and much of Europe (except the UK, CZ, and several other countries), current ID is required to get a mobile phone number. Even on a postpaid plan after proving identity, anyone with indefinite residency must keep their status up-to-date.

The US and aforementioned European countries (among others)/are better about this because anyone can just get a SIM/number.

as an e-mail hosting provider myself asking for phone validation is one of the most effective tools against spammers which use company I work for infrastrucure to spread their spam