Hotspot Shield VPN News: Company Slapped With Complaint by Privacy Group
Virtual Private Network (VPN) services are supposed to protect the privacy of internet users, but one particular company is allegedly doing the opposite.
According to reports, popular and free VPN service Hotspot Shield is now facing a complaint filed by a privacy group with the Federal Trade Commission (FTC)Hotspot Shield VPN News: Company Slapped With Complaint by Privacy Group for allegedly failing to deliver its promise of "complete anonymity" to its subscribers.
The 14-page complaint was filed by the Center for Democracy and Technology (CDT) on Monday, accusing Hotspot Shield and its parent company AnchorFree of undisclosed practices that invade the users' privacy. These practices include traffic redirection and data sharing, which are obviously doing more harm than good.
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As noted in the complaint, Hotspot Shield has the authority to intercept and redirect requests made by its users. For instance, the traffic generated by a user who enters a commercial website can be redirected to Hotspot Shield's partner website and advertisement companies. This kind of activity boosts the revenue of AnchorFree significantly while putting the user's data at risk.
In addition, CDT pointed out that the software's security is unreliable. Customer payment data are suspected to be compromised as well since users who paid for the service's Elite version have reported credit card fraud right after their transaction using Hotspot Shield. User information stored by the company are also vulnerable to threats since mobile carrier information is not properly encrypted.
The Verge pointed out that VPN services are becoming a more popular choice among internet users because some internet service providers (ISPs) have been proven to collect information from users to sell it to advertisers.
"VPNs are essentially a way of moving your trust," said Jacob Hoffman-Andrews, senior staff technologist at the non-profit Electronic Frontier Foundation. "Normally, you trust your ISP not to snoop on you, but if you can't trust your ISP anymore, you can pay somebody else."
However, it is worth noting that untrustworthy VPNs can also sell user data and do much worse things like steal a user's bandwidth for botnet.
