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Top VPN Provider Accused of Sharing Customer Traffic With Online Advertisers (bleepingcomputer.com)

Posted by msmash on from the smells-fishy dept.

Catalin Cimpanu, reporting for BleepingComputer: On Monday, the Center for Democracy & Technology (CDT) -- a US-based privacy group -- filed a complaint with the US Federal Trade Commission (FTC) accusing one of today's largest VPN providers of deceptive trade practices. In a 14-page complaint, the CDT accuses AnchorFree -- the company behind the Hotspot Shield VPN -- of breaking promises it made to its users by sharing their private web traffic with online advertisers for the purpose of improving the ads shown to its users. In its complaint to the FTC, the CDT is not accusing Anchor Free of secretly injecting ads, as users are well aware of this practice, but of not respecting promises made to its customers. More specifically, the CDT says that AnchorFree does not respect a pledge made in marketing materials that it won't track or sell customer information.

4 of 55 comments (clear)

  1. Again, is anyone surprised? by JohnFen · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Your VPN provider has access to your traffic. If anyone aside from you or the party you're communicating with has access to your traffic, your communications are not secure -- even if that "anyone" uses the acronym "VPN".

    1. Re:Again, is anyone surprised? by JohnFen · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Open my wallet? I have no problems paying for things. The issue is -- where can I find a service that I can trust, paid or not? I submit that I can't. Not to say they don't exist, but that it's impossible to tell who they are.

    2. Re:Again, is anyone surprised? by Hadlock · · Score: 5, Interesting

      Yep, I interviewed at another company, it came out about halfway through that the reason why they're profitable is that they provide a free VPN service, then monitor mobile app traffic over the VPN to get aggregate use stats on various top 1000 apps and then sell that usage info. The world's largest investment banks are buying up this data to determine if they want to buy or sell stocks like Snapchat, etc.

      --
      moox. for a new generation.
  2. Re:You know what they say... by JohnFen · · Score: 5, Interesting

    That statement is obsolete, since you're often the product even when you are paying for it.