I'm currently looking into setting up a VPS in Iceland or Germany and running my own mail server from it, moving away from Fastmail. It saddens me as I both dislike managing my own mail server and really like Fastmail, but having my email routed through the US is no longer feasible.

what hosting provider are you looking into, for iceland?

So far I've looked into 1984hosting.com and orangewebsite.com, both pricey compared to what I'm used to but I guess that is the price of better privacy. There is a cheaper one called icelandvps.com but they are owned by a UK parent company so I am little unclear about what that means for Iceland law, privacy etc. It may be cheaper to go to a German host, I am not yet decided.

Dude, I am looking too. Try this: http://www.edis.at/en/server/linux-vserver/iceland/vrs-micro...

Austrian company but they offer hosting in Iceland. I once tried Malaysia. Bad idead, lot's of spam from Malaysia. Lost 50% of my Email due to blacklisting...

Nice link I'll definitely give them a try, thanks!

Since the .fm tld is for the Federated States of Micronesia, I was sort of hoping for hosting on some tropical island in the South Pacific, but even then the Fastmail operators would more than likely acquiesce to any US spying "requests."

Unfortunately, there are increasingly few nations which will refuse US et al spying "requests."

They are already hosting in Iceland (but also, New York) [0]. I guess the next step would be to allow the customer to choose.

[0]: https://twitter.com/FastMailFM/status/382100278415081473

I think they could really get an edge over other email providers if they went all out as a pro-privacy/non-US email alternative. They would need to exit the US though to take such a claim seriously, which is unlikely.

Brazil? haha. Iceland or Germany for sure. Finland, Eastern Europe, maybe?

Simply out of USA/UK jurisdiction would be good, as they're now demonstrably the worst in the West (at least it would certainly seem so based on recent news trends). So, anywhere else.

Portugal just opened the largest EU datacenter. Connectivity infrastructure is really good in the country (heh, international debt had to go somewhere...). The government couldn't care less about snooping, although they are US-friendly to a fault. However, court approval is required for snooping and courts are slow moving and processes are open: Service providers may inform the customer about the snooping order and may withhold data if the customer challenges the court order.

Plus, it's sunny!

Re your last point, is it not better if machines are in a colder climate?

Yes. The datacenter is up in the mountains (Covilhã), where it's colder.