massive ecosystem of “review” blogs appeared, each
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with ethical practices in mind. There have also been
data breaches and stories of shady practices from
within VPN companies themselves.
This bad behavior compounded a fundamental
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encrypted. It’s impossible for a person to tell if
companies are respecting their privacy, handling
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towards accountability, such as by commissioning
third-party audits of their services. But without a
shared framework, it’s not always clear if these audits
measure anything useful.
The end result has been a morass of confusion
around not only which VPNs are trustworthy, but
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entire concept of VPNs is under threat of becoming
so confusing and toxic that consumers may start
avoiding them altogether. Much like a couple having
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easier to just ignore it and keep walking.
FORMING AN ALLIANCE
My hope has always been that, eventually, some VPN
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risk of eating itself alive. Instead of attacking one
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share the same goal—protecting people—and start
holding one another to higher standards. The
antivirus industry managed to do this years ago, and
most now share information about particularly nasty
threats among themselves rather than trying to
undercut competitors at the cost of people’s safety.
M
a
x
E
d
d
y
