Do VPN Providers Sell Your Data? (Facts to Be Aware of)
We need neither of the abovementioned things, and Granddad wasn’t wrong either. Instead, we need to understand that all those free services take payment. It’s just that it’s not money.
Here’s How Free VPNs Sell Your Information
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Using a free VPN often poses privacy risks. Some free VPNs even sell your information to third parties or handover to any authorities seeking your data. This article describes them in detail.
Sneak peek at how free VPNs sell data
It’s always tempting to get something for free, even more, when the thing in question is a digital service that has become an essential tool to survive in today’s internet environment, as VPNs currently are. However, choosing free VPNs over paid ones threatens a user’s privacy. That’s because many free VPNs sell users’ information to make money, thus failing the entire purpose of using such a tool. Therefore, avoid free VPN services at all costs. Fortunately, you can avoid them at the reasonable cost of a premium commercial VPN service, like NordVPN or Surfshark, which ensures complete privacy.
“There’s no such free thing as a free lunch” used to be a life maxim your grandfather would share with you. And nobody seems to have any doubts whatsoever. But then, the internet broke out of the academic world to become mainstream. Suddenly, things like free music, movies, books, audiobooks, and TV shows were on the cards. So naturally, millions of users worldwide were delighted — many of them remain so.
So what are we to make of Granddad’s old rule? First, free things have kept popping up. Free email services, proxy servers, and digital services are now around. Some became veritable institutions like Hotmail, Yahoo, or Gmail. Did the world go crazy? Do we need a new Adam Smith to make sense of the digital economy? And the most important and sensitive question of all: was grandfather wrong about lunches?
We need neither of the abovementioned things, and Granddad wasn’t wrong either. Instead, we need to understand that all those free services take payment. It’s just that it’s not money.
Let’s take Gmail, for instance. In the current times, it’s almost equivalent to a digital passport. And you don’t have to pay for it. Or do you? Google’s business model is to offer you ads. And they have the technology to show you advertisements you could click on.
So how do they know how to pick suitable ads for you? Gmail scans your emails to figure out what you’d like to buy with the highest probability. And every time you click, Google gets paid. So it’s not so free when you think about it. You pay for your Gmail by clicking on ads and providing Google with all the information they need about you to decide which ads to show you. So you see, there is no free lunch in Gmail.
So the stream of supposedly free things keeps flowing on the internet. One of the latest ones is the free VPN. They have great marketing campaigns; they claim they’re as good as the best-paid ones. So why not use them? To have all the power a great VPN affords you for nothing? Except they’re not free. As with Gmail, Yahoo, and other “free” things, you will pay for your VPN with something other than money. Let us tell you what that will be: you.
So here’s a new granddaddy’s maxim for the brave new digital world: whenever you’re not paying for something with money on the internet, you are the product that’s on sale. And that’s why free VPNs are not the neat idea they purport to be. Here, we will tell you how free VPNs sell your information to make money. But before diving into the perils of free VPNs, let’s start by reviewing the basics.
What is a VPN? What does it do, and why would you need one?
A Virtual Private Network (VPN) is a digital service that performs two operations on your behalf.
Firstly, it will encrypt all the incoming and outgoing traffic from the device you have connected to the VPN server.
Secondly, it will spoof the IP address, showing the world an IP address taken from the VPN network as if it were yours. These two neat little tricks ensure that no third party can make sense of your traffic and that every computer you interact with on the internet doesn’t know where you are; they assume you’re in the VPN server’s location because that’s the IP address they see.
So, if you are on a VPN, nobody can see what you’re doing or know where you are, right? Wrong. Your VPN server knows. That is the critical link in the chain; if you can trust your VPN, everything is all right. But what happens if you don’t? And what’s the deal with free VPNs? Can you trust them?
A top-notch VPN can cost you about a hundred USD yearly, depending on your choice’s vendor. So free VPNs look like a sweet deal. They seem like they’re here to save the day out of the kindness of their hearts.
However, free VPNs are not in business out of compassion. They are businesses, and they’re around to make a profit–by selling you out.
Data privacy and free VPNs
Ok, so Gmail scans your emails to determine your buying potential. But do they sell that information to anybody else? As far as we know, Gmail doesn’t share the profile it has on you with anybody else. It’s just happy to use it for its purpose. But is every other “free” service respectful to the data you provide? In the case of free VPNs, do they sell your information?
The answer is, unfortunately, yes. It’s not a secret, and while free VPNs don’t publicize it loudly, they provide you with that information in their terms and conditions of service. But you have to read all the small printing.
Every time you connect to an accessible VPN server, your traffic will pass through it. And your activity will be recorded in logs and stored. Those logs are then sold to the VPN’s commercial partner, most commonly advertisers. And it all happens with your consent because you agree to the VPN’s terms by using it.
So whenever you use a free VPN, your data is not safe or private. These companies will sell their logs to whoever will pay for them. Yes, most commonly, those are advertisers. But how can you tell that other malicious actors won’t buy the record that includes your data?
The whole point of using a VPN is to ensure you can be online with complete privacy, anonymity, and security. Using a VPN that will log everything you do to sell away defeats that purpose, even if it’s through the backdoor.
Is there any free VPN on the internet that won’t sell my data?
There are a few free VPNs that won’t sell your data. They are usually the free option of a VPN that also offers paid services. However, in every case, the free version of the VPN has one or several limitations. VPNs that will give you a free service without selling your data include ProtonVPN, Windscribe, and AtlasVPN.
Do free VPNs sell information?
Yes, most of them do. That is the business model, and they are usually pretty honest about it if you take the time to read their privacy policy.
Do VPN services, in general, sell your data?
You need to consider the type of VPN you’re asking about to answer this question. First, there are VPNs whose business is to keep you safe online. These VPNs won’t sell your information, but only a handful provide a free service. There are other VPNs whose business is not keeping you safe but collecting data they can sell to their commercial partners. These are most of the free VPNs, and they sell every piece of information they store about you.
Why would a free VPN sell my data?
Your user data is valuable. There is a market for this type of information, so there is the first economic incentive for anybody, let alone free VPNs, to sell your data if they can get it. The second reason is more important: free VPNs sell your data because that is their business. No, they’re not online to provide you with protection. Instead, they provide you with a free VPN network for the very purpose of collecting your data. And no, they’re not evil. Most of them will inform you about their priorities regarding your data if you take a minute to read their policy.
Can free VPNs be trusted?
No, you can’t trust most of them. VPNs like ProtonVPN or AtlasVPN are exceptional, but you should avoid them whenever you come across a free VPN.
Do VPN Providers Sell Your Data? (Facts to Be Aware of)
You’ve heard the rumors and now you’re looking for answers, right? Apparently, some VPN providers have been known to sell service users’ data. Is it the paid services or just the free VPN services that are known for this misleading behavior and why do they do it? We’re going to tell you everything you need to know.
Some VPN providers have been known to sell users’ data to third-party sources to make money. Your VPN provider can track your online activity and can watch your user traffic. People who take their privacy seriously should consider using a paid and secure VPN provider.
It’s a real shame that when you sign up with a company that was curated with the promise of protecting your privacy they don’t deliver on that promise. Unfortunately, there are some VPN providers out there that do sell your data to make ends meet. Keep reading below to find out how, why, and which VPN providers sell your data.
Do VPN Providers Sell Your Data?
Both some of the paid and free VPN service providers have been known to sell user data. VPNs can track your internet activity, they can log your internet activity, and they can sell your privacy to third-party sites that want to advertise and sell you more products.
VPNs are known for providing people with access to geo-restricted content by masking their server and IP address which also provides their private information with protection from hackers, malware, and cookies.
The problem is, not all VPN providers are true to their word and while they do encrypt your IP address to give you access to content that isn’t usually accessible to you, they also track and sell your data.
Why VPN Providers Sell Your Data
Most paid VPN services don’t need to track and sell your personal information because you’re paying them which means they can afford the rent for the servers they use. Although we highly recommend always checking the terms and conditions and privacy policy of any company extremely closely before signing up for anything.
Free VPN providers, however, need to be able to afford the rent for the servers they use. So while they’re giving you access to content you want and allowing you to pursue information you wouldn’t usually be able to reach through blocks and firewalls, your privacy security isn’t their main concern.
Here are a few reasons why VPN providers sell your data:
- Running a VPN service is not cheap
- VPN providers make money by allowing third parties access to track your data
- They get paid through advertisement revenue
- To entice users to sign up for their paid VPN service by offering a higher level of privacy and security
The only reason that VPN providers will sell your data is for their own benefit. To get paid, and to continue using the servers they rent to provide an ongoing service to their unknowing customers while making a profit off selling your information.
How do VPN Services Sell Your Data?
When you sign up for anything there are usually a few personal details required, like your full name, email address, and occasionally your payment details. Yes, even for free services, they might often ask for payment details as a “security” measure.
The second you offer up an email address, all privacy is lost because you’ve essentially just granted providers permission to use your information for online marketing.
One of the main reasons for signing up to use a VPN, other than gaining access to geo-restricted content, is to protect your personal privacy while sending and receiving data online. VPN providers will use this as the main selling point to get your attention and your services, but they may very well just use this information to get money elsewhere.
Data-driven technology and online marketing and advertisement tech giants will pay good money for a VPN provider to hand over service users’ personal information so they can target their advertisements towards a wider audience.
When you sign up with your VPN with your email address and some other personal information, your VPN will track your usage and online traffic and with the data stored for your ISP, they hand it over to the tech giants in exchange for a fee that allows them to pay for their server use.
- They share your email address
- They can reroute other servers through yours and allow for cybercrime activities to exit through your ISP address making it look as though you have been involved in illegal activity
- Through tracking cookies that you willingly accept to gain access to a page
- By gaining control of your smartphone and keeping tabs on your history
- Harvesting and selling your location, hardware device, and personal service user information to data mining companies
- If you do happen to sign up to a paid VPN service, they can also log and sell your payment information if you’re not careful enough to sign up to a reputable company
Is it Allowed for VPN Providers to Sell Your Data?
You would think that when signing up for a company’s services that are supposed to protect your data and personal information it would be illegal for them to sell it.
Unfortunately, as much as the selling of your persona data is scrutinized and frowned upon if a company is selling your privacy to third parties, it’s more possible that they have written this somewhere in their legal terms of service and privacy policy.
No, in most cases it is not illegal for your VPN provider to sell your information. It will only be illegal if there is nothing about them doing this written in the terms of service when you sign up.
Always check and read through the terms of service very carefully to ensure the company you sign up with does not allow for your data to be sold to third parties.
There have been numerous VPN snooping and selling data to third-party incidents, yet companies continue to advertise their ‘secure’ VPN services to people willing to risk it.
Conclusion
VPN services cost money for the providers, so hoping they will give you a service for free might be wishful thinking on your part.
Choosing a VPN service with a genuinely above-average reputation and audited certifications will be the best thing you can do for your privacy, but you should also never assume that they have your security and best interests at heart either.
VPN services can track your data and they can sell your personal information to outside sources so that they can receive money to continue providing a service for their customers.