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MyKolab
Type of site
Webmail
Available inEnglish, German
OwnerKolab Systems AG[1] [2]
URLmykolab.com
CommercialYes
RegistrationRequired
LaunchedJanuary 2013; 11 years ago (2013-01)
Current statusOnline

MyKolab is a secure web-based email and groupware service, owned and operated by Kolab Systems AG.

Kolab

Kolab Systems AG is the professional company behind the Kolab groupware solution. Founded in 2010 in Zürich, Switzerland, Kolab Systems has taken the place of the Kolab Konsortium which initially provided Kolab services primarily in German speaking areas from 2004 to 2010. It is also the largest contributor to the Roundcube web mailer project. [4] The company's board of directors is composed by CEO Georg Greve, the CEO of Swiss IT security specialist Dreamlab Technologies AG, Nicolas Mayencourt, and KDAB's managing director Till Adam. [5] KDAB is one of the major contributors to the Qt Project. [6] [7]


Background

MyKolab was initially launched in January 2013 as a public beta release and became fully available later that year in August 1st, as a paid service.[8] After documents detailing United States and British government mass surveillance programs like PRISM and Tempora were leaked by Edward Snowden in May 2013,[9] [10] US based secure e-mail services like Lavabit and Silent Circle, under pressure of government agencies, decided to shut down operations rather than disclose personal data of their users.[11] [12] Based outside of the United States, MyKolab then received media attention as one of the few and most secure alternatives still in operation.[13]

Pamela Jones, author of legal site Groklaw, has recently chosen MyKolab as her email provider.[14]

Privacy

Hosted in Switzerland, MyKolab benefits of its strict privacy laws[15] and uses exclusively free or open source software, guaranteeing transparency.[16] The service is subject to the national laws of that country which means there will be no access to a user's data by third parties without a duly authorized warrant issued by a Swiss judge. MyKolab is still obliged to provide access to lawful interception requests. The requests are processed by MyKolab staff, and either granted or rejected. As Switzerland is extremely reluctant with such access, all the statistics of such Lawful Interceptions are always provided in anonymised form by the authorities themselves,[17] including detailed spreadsheets that allow you to control the grounds for approval. In 2012, there were only 20 cases of real-time internet wire-tapping in all of Switzerland and a further 26 for retroactive communication meta-information.[18] Up to August 1st 2013, MyKolab has received 0 requests to access customer data.[19]

Email encryption

With server-side encryption, the encrypted data, the key, and the pass phrase need to pass through the web interface and be available on the server. Once the provider holds all three, it does have access to all the data despite the encryption. For that reason, MyKolab chose not provide this functionality, and recommend using Kontact or Thunderbird with Enigmail for proper end-to-end encryption. [20]

Account types

MyKolab offers 2 types of accounts: Individual and Group manager accounts. [21]

Individual account

It is aimed at the individual who wishes a more secure and private alternative to free email services, with full groupware functionality. There's the option of a Lite[22] version, which offers the email service only and do not include the groupware synchronisation feature. Standard storage size for this account type ranges from 1 up to 10 GB, with cost incurring accordingly.

Group Manager account

This account type provides the customer with an administration login, used purely to set up the actual groupware account within a domain under the customer's control, and to administrate users existing within that domain. It is also possible to use an own SSL Certificate for that domain.[23] Cost is incurred per user in a similar fashion to the individual accounts.

Features

Synchronisation with mobile devices

The ActiveSync option allows to synchronize emails, contacts, events and tasks from MyKolab.com to a mobile device. This works with all devices that support ActiveSync, such as Android, iPhone or Blackberry Z10. Alternatively, it is possible to use CalDAV and CardDAV capable clients to synchronise data.

Native desktop client for all platforms

The Kolab Client runs on all modern operating systems such as Linux, Windows and MacOS. It supports different applications such as Mail, Address Books, Calendars, ToDo Management, Journals, Notes and offers many detailed features for each of them. It is based on Kontact and uses the Qt Technology to be fully portable.

Server-side mail filtering

It it possible to define the criteria for emails to be filtered into different mail folders. The filtering will happen on the server right after the mail is received. This way emails are the same on all devices. Users can edit the filters as SIEVE scripts directly.

Free/Busy Information for Planning

Allows to see whether the participants of events are free or busy without revealing any information what they are doing during these times. This allows to schedule appointments and ensure that everybody is able to participate.


Other available features:

  • Threaded mailview
  • Task management
  • File storage
  • Customisable webclient
  • Set up multiple identities
  • Multiple calendar folders and views


Payment and pricing

MyKolab supports PayPal as a payment method for monthly subscription and wire transfer for yearly payments. In the future there will be an option for direct credit card handling as well as alternative forms of payment like Bitcoin. [24] The current price for individual accounts with standard groupware functionality is 10 CHF, and for the email-only version, 5 CHF. [25]

See also

References

  1. ^ http://kolabsys.com/news/after-groklaw-shutdown-mykolab-lavabit-alternative-offering-lite-option
  2. ^ https://mykolab.com/tos
  3. ^ "MyKolab.com Site Info". Alexa Internet. Retrieved September 9, 2013.
  4. ^ http://roundcubeinbox.wordpress.com/2013/03/11/the-kolab-story/
  5. ^ http://kolabsys.com/content/company
  6. ^ http://www.kdab.com/about-us/
  7. ^ en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qt_Project#Participating_organizations
  8. ^ http://kolab.org/blog/greve/2013/08/09/mykolab.com-building-open-source-cloud-service-was-missing
  9. ^ http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/edward-snowden-says-motive-behind-leaks-was-to-expose-surveillance-state/2013/06/09/aa3f0804-d13b-11e2-a73e-826d299ff459_story.html?tid=pm_politics_pop
  10. ^ http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/intelligence-leaders-push-back-on-leakers-media/2013/06/09/fff80160-d122-11e2-a73e-826d299ff459_story.html
  11. ^ http://lavabit.com
  12. ^ http://silentcircle.wordpress.com/2013/08/09/to-our-customers/
  13. ^ http://gizmodo.com/why-kolab-might-be-the-best-secure-email-service-still-1171618005
  14. ^ http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=20130818120421175
  15. ^ https://www.li.admin.ch/en/themes/stats.html
  16. ^ http://kolabsys.com/news/no-foreign-data-reeves-privacy-respecting-email-service-mykolabcom-launched
  17. ^ https://www.li.admin.ch/en/themes/stats.html
  18. ^ https://www.li.admin.ch/download/stats_2012.xlsx
  19. ^ https://mykolab.com/privacy
  20. ^ https://mykolab.com/faq#encryption
  21. ^ https://mykolab.com/pricing
  22. ^ http://kolabsys.com/news/after-groklaw-shutdown-mykolab-lavabit-alternative-offering-lite-option
  23. ^ https://mykolab.com/support/account#domains
  24. ^ https://mykolab.com/faq#payment
  25. ^ https://mykolab.com/pricing
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