A new report uncovers the troubling ties between top VPN services like ExpressVPN and the Israeli security state, raising alarms about how much control Israel’s Unit 8200 has over your online privacy.

“Kape Technologies is a major player in the online privacy world, one of the three giants that collectively control the market. It owns many of the world’s top VPNs, including ExpressVPN, CyberGhost, Private Internet Access, ZenMate, Intego Antivirus, and a host of tech websites that promote its products. Kape brands can be seen sponsoring a wide array of public figures, such as Tucker Carlson, Angry Video Game Nerd, Drew Gooden, Lex Fridman, Cody Ko, Uncle Roger, and Ben Shapiro.”

“(Kape Technologies) It also bought a host of VPN review sites, such as vpnMentor and Wizcase – platforms that purport to supply readers with expert information about which VPN would be best for them. vpnMentor insists that this considerable conflict of interest does not affect their ratings.”

What do you think of all this?

  • @d4rko@beehaw.orgOP
    10•2 months ago

    Good to know, thanks for sharing. I didn’t know about this,. It shows that is really hard to be correctly informed without dedicating an extra effort on many steps of the privacy way.

    • @Caliper@beehaw.org
      4•2 months ago

      I looked at the other articles on the site and that already caused some red flags. Then looked at the wiki and saw the same thing.

      • @bloodfart@lemmy.ml
        3•2 months ago

        Says rule 1 in the modlog.

        Didn’t seem like it was bigoted, but the comment claimed the news source was pro-Iran and pro Syria or something with a Wikipedia link as evidence.

        • @floofloof@lemmy.caEnglish
          1•2 months ago

          My comment was just advising people to be media-literate and consider the source, though I also said that this in itself doesn’t make the article questionable (I actually think it’s quite credible). And I linked to Wikipedia’s article about this news website. I wasn’t trying to defend Israel or be controversial, and it was a bit of a surprise to see this get deleted.