Fastmail privacy rating

Summary

Fastmail scores 50 out of 100 (grade D) on the email providers criteria. It meets 9 of 19 criteria: no ads or data sales, transparency report, tells users about requests, TLS configuration, open protocols, custom domains, IMAP support, POP3 support and ARC sealing. It partly meets security headers, encrypted mailbox storage, sign up without personal data, SMTP submission and Sender Rewriting Scheme. It does not meet open source, no trackers or telemetry, independent audit, end-to-end encryption and mail transport security. It is based in Australia: Five Eyes member; CLOUD Act data access agreement with the US. Automated tests: SSL Labs grade A+ and Mozilla HTTP Observatory grade B+.

Score 50 out of 100. How scoring works

Criteria

• ✖No

  Open source ×3Weight 3 of 3

  Is all the source code needed to run the product public?

  Closed source.

• ✖No

  No trackers or telemetry ×3Weight 3 of 3

  Are the website and apps free of third-party trackers, with any analytics anonymous and any telemetry off by default?

  The marketing website uses third-party marketing cookies, including PartnerStack, to measure paid ads. Logged-in pages have no third-party analytics.

  fastmail.com

• ✔Yes

  No ads or data sales ×2Weight 2 of 3

  Is the product funded without advertising, ad targeting or selling user data?

  Funded by paid plans. The privacy policy states that personal information is not sold.

  fastmail.com

• ✖No

  Independent audit ×2Weight 2 of 3

  Has an independent security or privacy audit been published within the last three years?

  No independent audit is published.

• ✔Yes

  Transparency report ×2Weight 2 of 3

  Does the provider regularly publish how many government and legal requests it receives and how it responds?

  Publishes yearly counts of valid and actioned law enforcement requests by origin and data type.

  fastmail.com

• ✔Yes

  Tells users about requests ×1Weight 1 of 3

  Does the provider promise to tell users about requests for their data, unless a court forbids it?

  Users are notified of legal requests for their data unless prohibited by law or notice would cause harm.

  fastmail.help

• ✖No

  End-to-end encryption ×3Weight 3 of 3

  Can mail be end-to-end encrypted so that the provider cannot read message contents?

  No end-to-end encryption in Fastmail's own apps. PGP or S/MIME only works in third-party apps.

  fastmail.com

• ◐Partial

  Encrypted mailbox storage ×3Weight 3 of 3

  Is stored mail encrypted with a key the provider does not hold?

  Mail is stored on encrypted disks with keys Fastmail holds.

  fastmail.com

• ✔Yes

  Open protocols ×2Weight 2 of 3

  Can any standard app connect over IMAP, POP3, SMTP, CalDAV or CardDAV, without extra software?

  IMAP, POP3, SMTP, CalDAV and CardDAV work with any client.

  fastmail.help

• ✔Yes

  Custom domains ×1Weight 1 of 3

  Can mail be sent and received with your own domain?

  Available on every plan above Basic.

  fastmail.help

• ◐Partial

  Sign up without personal data ×2Weight 2 of 3

  Can an account be created without a phone number or another email address?

  No phone number is needed by default, but some trial accounts are asked to verify a mobile number by SMS.

  fastmail.help

• ◐Partial

  Sender Rewriting Scheme ×1Weight 1 of 3

  Is the envelope sender rewritten with SRS when mail is forwarded, so forwarded mail keeps passing SPF?

  SRS is available as an option for forwarding, but regular forwarding does not rewrite the sender.

  fastmail.help

• ✔Yes

  ARC sealing ×1Weight 1 of 3

  Does the provider validate and add ARC (RFC 8617) signatures, so authentication results survive forwarding?

  Validates ARC chains on inbound mail and adds ARC headers.

  fastmail.com

Automated tests

• ✔Yes

  TLS configuration ×2Weight 2 of 3

  Does the website pass the Qualys SSL Labs test with a grade of A or better?

  Grade A+

  ssllabs.com

• ◐Partial

  Security headers ×1Weight 1 of 3

  Does the website pass the Mozilla HTTP Observatory test with a grade of A or better?

  Grade B+ (80/100+)

  developer.mozilla.org

• …Not tested yet

  Modern web standards ×1Weight 1 of 3

  Does the website score 90% or higher on the Internet.nl website test?

  Not tested yet.

• …Not tested yet

  Email security standards ×2Weight 2 of 3

  Does the mail domain score 90% or higher on the Internet.nl email test?

  Not tested yet.

• ✔Yes

  IMAP support ×2Weight 2 of 3

  Does the IMAP server accept connections over implicit TLS on port 993 and advertise IMAP4rev1 or IMAP4rev2 with IDLE push?

  imap.fastmail.com:993 (implicit TLS). IMAP4rev2 advertised with IDLE.

• ✔Yes

  POP3 support ×1Weight 1 of 3

  Does the POP3 server accept connections over implicit TLS on port 995 and answer CAPA with UIDL?

  pop.fastmail.com:995 (implicit TLS). CAPA: EXPIRE, LOGIN-DELAY, TOP, UIDL, PIPELINING, RESP-CODES, AUTH-RESP-CODE, USER, SASL.

• ◐Partial

  SMTP submission ×2Weight 2 of 3

  Does mail submission work over implicit TLS on port 465 with SMTPUTF8, 8BITMIME, PIPELINING and AUTH?

  smtp.fastmail.com:465 (implicit TLS). Missing: SMTPUTF8.

• ✖No

  Mail transport security ×3Weight 3 of 3

  Does the mail domain enforce encrypted, authenticated delivery with MTA-STS, DANE, DNSSEC, TLS-RPT and an enforced DMARC policy?

  Passes: SPF, TLS-RPT. Missing: DMARC none, MTA-STS testing, DNSSEC, DANE none.

Email standards

• ✔Yes: Mail serversMXin1-smtp.messagingengine.com, in2-smtp.messagingengine.com
• ✔Yes: RFC 7208 sender policySPFpublished
• ✖No: RFC 7489. Quarantine or reject counts as enforcedDMARCp=none
• ✖No: RFC 8461 strict transport securityMTA-STStesting
• ✔Yes: RFC 8460 TLS failure reportsTLS-RPTpublished
• ✖No: RFC 4033 signed DNSDNSSECnot validated
• ✖No: RFC 7672 TLSA records on MX hostsDANEnone
• ✖No: Brand logo record (not scored)BIMInone
• ✔Yes: RFC 6186 and RFC 8314 service records (not scored)SRVclient autoconfiguration published

Capabilities are what each server advertises before login. How these tests work