Kape Now Owns ExpressVPN, CyberGhost, PIA, Zenmate, and VPN “Review” Sites

https://restoreprivacy.com/kape-technologies-owns-expressvpn-cyberghost-pia-zenmate-vpn-review-sites/

by walterbell • 5 years ago

275 85 5 years ago

chuckee• 5 years ago

Shouldn't some kind of anti-trust agency forbid such mergers, or break them up after the fact? At least in an alternate world where anti-trust law was still enforced.

killingtime742• 5 years ago

I studied competition law and I think the regulators would probably struggle to even understand what a VPN is

GekkePrutser• 5 years ago

They don't even have to though. All they have to know is that it's a market.

SahAssar5• 5 years ago

Anti-trust is meant to protect competition against monopolies, not everything against anything evil. At least that's how I've understood it.

It'd be hard to argue that Kape is even close to becoming a monopoly.

missedthecue• 5 years ago

Right. There are dozens of different VPN providers and switching costs are pretty low.

nitrogen2• 5 years ago

AIUI antitrust also covers cartels, e.g. this one from the early 20th century controlling lightbulbs: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phoebus_cartel

tablespoon3• 5 years ago

Shouldn't some kind of anti-trust agency forbid such mergers, or break them up after the fact? At least in an alternate world where anti-trust law was still enforced.

Even without anti-trust, it should be illegal to own or buy a "review site" for something you sell. That kind of thing is very counter to consumer interests and a blatant conflict of interest.

ortusdux• 5 years ago

I frequently encounter 1-off review sites that are owned by the #1 product on the list. Many are transparent about it, and some even do a good job listing their competitors and describing them in a fair light. I think they are mostly a response to Google's algorithms prioritizing reciently published blog style top-10 lists.

Here is the first result when I google "best free youtube downloader"

https://www.gihosoft.com/hot-topics/best-free-youtube-downlo...

xboxnolifes• 5 years ago

I feel like this should fall under advertising laws. Maybe it does and I'm not familiar with the area. Does the review site need to disclose the fact of ownership?

SahAssar5• 5 years ago

That sort of rule would quickly become very hard to untangle. For example news papers are often the only good source of reliable, in-depth book reviews and for historical reasons the companies that sell books and sell news papers are often owned by the same parent company.

In the Kape case I think it is clearly dishonest, and the same can be said for the online order mattress space among others. Most online direct to consumer spaces (for example gaming and anti-virus) probably has some actor that is dishonestly setting up or buying review sites.

But it is not exactly clear how you would in a legal sense draw the line.

donmcronald• 5 years ago

The story of Sleepopolis changed the way I think about review sites.

https://www.fastcompany.com/3065928/sleepopolis-casper-blogg...

dehrmann2• 5 years ago

I suppose, but they have better things to do with their time than prevent consolidation in the snake oil market.

ucha3• 5 years ago

Yet Sven Taylor recommended ExpressVPN for years despite the fact that its ownership was quite suspect (secret). We've never fully known who was behind it and from where it was truly operated.

The ranking of best VPNs on the site is mostly a ranking of VPNs that offer the largest referral fees [1].

One of the largest, most honest and transparent VPN, Mullvad, does not have an affiliate program. And guess what, it's not even reviewed on Restore Privacy!

[1] https://onemorecupof-coffee.com/best-vpn-affiliate-programs/

ouEight12• 5 years ago

The ranking of best VPNs on the site is mostly a ranking of VPNs that offer the largest referral fees [1].

Can't we replace "VPNs" with pretty much any service at this point though?

I haven't trusted 'review/ranking' sites in ages, because after see the same top 5 "best hosting providers ever!" lists one 3 sites, you kind of get a hint.

ohashi5• 5 years ago

As someone who has been working on an honest web hosting review site for a decade now. You're totally right. I see the same pattern in this article talking about fake review sites. The biggest offender in hosting was Endurance International Group who owned so many major brands and gobbled them up. You'd often find any ranking full of the brands they owned (BlueHost, HostGator, iPage, JustHost, Site5, Arvixe, etc, etc, etc).

Since you're really skeptical, I'd love to hear your take on what I've done (and been doing) in terms of trying to create an honest system.

The gist is, I scrape Twitter data, filter out spam, affiliate links, etc, and use sentiment analysis to see which brands people actually like. My hypothesis was that reviews are fundamentally a weird human behavior. The real 'reviews' are embedded in normal conversation when you talk to people. With enough data of these signals, you can get a much better picture of what people really think. The results seem to line up basically like an NPS measurement.

https://reviewsignal.com/webhosting/compare has all my data if you want to see how the rankings actually look. Not every company has an affiliate program. Many smaller companies aren't listed because I can't get enough data.

fuddle• 5 years ago

Yes Mullvad is one of the best options!

crossroadsguy• 5 years ago

What are other best/better options?

(Due to my use-case and currency I find Mullvad pricey and would be interested in alternatives hence the question)

cliftonk• 5 years ago

Mullvad is wireguard based with extremely easy to use apps. Highly recommended.

ekianjo• 5 years ago

Not just wg they offer openvpn too.

truetraveller• 5 years ago

Mullvad it is! I'm potentially a new customer.

temp89642• 5 years ago

I can't access Mullvad website:

Secure Connection Failed

An error occurred during a connection to mullvad.net. SSL received a record that exceeded the maximum permissible length.

Error code: SSL_ERROR_RX_RECORD_TOO_LONG

BenjiWiebe• 5 years ago

I see that error sometimes when a content filter blocks a website.

Do you have an internet filter that also blocks vpn sites so you "can't" get around it?

acd10j• 5 years ago

How do we know someone not paying you for recommending Mullvad here or you do not have conflict of interest in recommending Mullvad, I have seen people recommending ExpressVPN everywhere even on HN before this whole fiasco. Problem with paid reviews is that it is very difficult to ascertain and detect them for ordinary consumer. Don’t know the solution but now i am skeptical of comments like you have posted.

ucha3• 5 years ago

You're absolutely right! I could be paid to recommend Mullvad and my praise of it should be taken with a grain of salt!

The point I was trying to make is that it is not a small provider, it is well rated by reputable privacy reviewers such as privacytools.io - who do not use affiliate link or take payment from providers - so there is no reason it should be ignored by Sven Taylor. I'm less trying to praise this particular VPN than to show that that review website is somewhat "provably" an affiliate link farm.

consumer4512• 5 years ago

If I was in charge of intel ops for any country with a decent budget, first thing I would do is build or buy a VPN company.

You have a self-selected group of people with something to hide. What could be more ideal to gather kompromat?

bryanrasmussen• 5 years ago

most often though the thing they're hiding is watching movies and shows they couldn't get in their country otherwise.

But the great thing about the vpn is some people leave it on and forget about it.

So then you invest in a free porn service.

consumer4512• 5 years ago

most often though the thing they're hiding is watching movies and shows they couldn't get in their country otherwise.

Sure, but the .0001% of users who use grindr while trying to hide their preferences, and hold a position of influence in government or a corporation make the whole effort worthwhile.

As a bonus, the op is actually profitable because the 99.9999% of people you don't care about, and don't have to spend man-hours on, are actually paying for all the man-hours that you spend on the people of interest!

The intel flywheel is up and spinning!

edit: this is all conjecture.

Ansil8496• 5 years ago

There are hundreds, if not thousands, of VPN services. Why would someone you care about targeting use your specific one? Or is the point that you're just conducting a massive dragnet operation to see what you find? In that case, it's probably way cheaper to just send agents out to search people's trash every night /s.

srg0• 5 years ago

There are hundreds of vpn services, but as the topic article tells us more and more of them are owned by the same entity. And this same entity tries to obscure this fact. And this same entity under a different name was allegedly "involved in browser hijacking, malicious software bundlers, adware, and other monetization methods" (Crossrider past). This same entity is registered in a country with influential and capable intelligence services, and not particularly known for its privacy laws. And if you google names behind this entity, you'll find mentions of bribery, jail time, gambling industry, and Israeli intelligence. I don't see why you put /s on your post.

mig39• 5 years ago

I just signed up for 3 months of Mullvad a few weeks ago. So far so good. Didn't even need my name or anything. I paid anonymously.

It's super fast with wireguard.

No affiliate links, no special discounts, no special sales prices. No coupon codes. Just privacy.

throwawaysea• 5 years ago

How do you pay anonymously?

nabaraz• 5 years ago

Giftcards or crypto. You could even mail cash to pay for it.

dtn• 5 years ago

You can snailmail them cash along with a random token you get from their website/account management page, and that gets credited to your account.

https://mullvad.net/en/pricing/

zapt02• 5 years ago

They have a variety of crypto options. You can also mail money directly to their office and if you are in Sweden you can buy physical vouchers in-store at several places (which can be paid in cash.)

(Just a happy customer.)

Ansil8496• 5 years ago

What's the point of paying anonymously if you are presumably going to be connecting to it from your IP anyway? Unless you're using it with another anonymizing option first.

blendergeek3• 5 years ago

If you are using it from behind a CG-Nat this could be a very effective form of privacy.

drexlspivey• 5 years ago

Does your ip come attached with your name?

rodgerd• 5 years ago

Isn't this the outfit associated with the "Emperor of Korea" who took over Freenode?

dragonwriter• 5 years ago

Isn't this the outfit associated with the "Emperor of Korea" who took over Freenode?

“Crown Prince”; the would-be Emporer who named him is still alive.

SkyMarshal• 5 years ago

Not really, the Emperor sold PIA to Kape, but that's the only known association, and the association seemed to end there.

mleonhard• 5 years ago

I'm not sure who I trust less, a shady Israeli proxy (VPN) company that claims not to track you, or Verizon/AT&T/T-Mobile/Comcast who successfully lobbied the US Government for permission to record and sell your network behavior, or Webpass (Google).

dehrmann2• 5 years ago

How much of your traffic is HTTPS and do you use DoH? I guess reverse DNS mappings can still get you something.

superflit22• 5 years ago

Is there a reason why people are not using distributed/blockchain VPNs as https://mysterium.network?

I cant understand why put your data on these shady VPNs.

null0pointer• 5 years ago

Because nobody wants to host an exit node.

superflit22• 5 years ago

No you dont.

If you use your free credits you can buy more.

No need to host an exit node.

Saris• 5 years ago

I don't trust that the exit nodes are safe.

NicoJuicy• 5 years ago

https://privacyguides.org/providers/vpn/

A community led guide for the best VPN's.

egberts1• 5 years ago

The entire vertical industry segment?

Or is that horizontal??

Or is it the entire path of an industry segment?

Yeah, just a path, a control path, to market control.

Kape Now Owns ExpressVPN, CyberGhost, PIA, Zenmate, and VPN “Review” Sites

Related Stories