NordVPN and Surfshark Are Merging, Continuing VPN Consolidation Trend (cnet.com) 22
An anonymous reader quotes a report from CNET: NordVPN and Surfshark have finalized a merger agreement between the two VPN providers, the companies announced Wednesday. Though the specifics of the transaction aren't being released, the finalized merger agreement follows months of negotiations between the two companies that began in mid-2021, according to a joint press release issued by Surfshark and Nord Security, NordVPN's parent company. Surfshark and NordVPN had been rivals in the ultra-competitive market for VPNs (virtual private networks) prior to the merger, but are now joining forces to "solidify both companies' offerings in different market segments and diversify the geographical reach," according to the press release. More consumers have turned to VPNs in recent years to counter increasingly invasive digital tracking from search engines, ISPs and advertisers, as well as to circumvent local content restrictions and censorship.
But the merger of two of the industry's top names -- both of which have long been among CNET's top VPN picks -- highlights the continued trend of consolidation in the VPN industry, which finds more brands under the umbrella of just three big companies -- Kape Technologies, Tesonet and Ziff Davis -- making it more important than ever to understand which entities are ultimately controlling the data sharing and privacy policies that underpin VPNs. The merger announcement follows the news just days ago that Surfshark was developed with the help of Tesonet, the same Lithuanian business incubator that helped NordVPN in its early days. While the Tesonet-NordVPN relationship was already known, the ties between Tesonet and Surfshark had been previously undisclosed. That changed last week after a report at Lithuanian news site Verslo zinios.
But the merger of two of the industry's top names -- both of which have long been among CNET's top VPN picks -- highlights the continued trend of consolidation in the VPN industry, which finds more brands under the umbrella of just three big companies -- Kape Technologies, Tesonet and Ziff Davis -- making it more important than ever to understand which entities are ultimately controlling the data sharing and privacy policies that underpin VPNs. The merger announcement follows the news just days ago that Surfshark was developed with the help of Tesonet, the same Lithuanian business incubator that helped NordVPN in its early days. While the Tesonet-NordVPN relationship was already known, the ties between Tesonet and Surfshark had been previously undisclosed. That changed last week after a report at Lithuanian news site Verslo zinios.
They're just "mergers"... (Score:3)
...nothing to see here.
Tell me, when every VPN provider is owned by one or two mega-corps, will we still ignorantly call it a private network, or will we be too busy convincing ourselves that monopolies technically don't exist according to Greed?
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Shut down? Well, not sure what's worse with that suggestion in the long run; All Your VPN Are Belong To Us...
..or VPNs being made illegal.
Re:Decentralized VPN (Score:4, Informative)
I was actually a little curious about this, but man, I already regret opening the page.
The Orchid network enables a decentralized virtual private network (VPN), allowing users to buy bandwidth from a global pool of service providers. To do this, Orchid uses an ERC-20 staking token called OXT, a new VPN protocol for token-incentivized bandwidth proxying, and smart-contracts with algorithmic advertising and payment functions. Orchid's users connect to bandwidth sellers using a provider directory, and they pay using probabilistic nanopayments so Ethereum transaction fees on packets are acceptably low.
The primary reasons for this new digital currency OXT are:
To have a digital currency that is specifically tied to consumption of bandwidth on the Orchid network
To align operator incentives towards the benefit of the Orchid Network.
Orchid supports the ability for users to buy a pre funded Orchid account from within the official iOS app using native FIAT currency. “Orchid credits” are special accounts where the cryptocurrency, xDai, must be spent only with our preferred providers. Like all Orchid accounts, the account can be shared among devices.
What is being purchased when a user buys Orchid credits?
Balance Based on the chosen pricing tier, the user will receive an Orchid account funded with an amount of xDai, subject to market fluctuations, which can be used to purchase bandwidth on the Orchid network.
Deposit A portion of the purchase is invested as a deposit to the generated account. This is required for participation in the Orchid network as both a deterrent of client malfeasance as well as a determinant for ticket sizing in our nanopayment system.
Gas Transactions made on the blockchain require small payments and a portion of the credits purchase goes to covering these costs for creating the Orchid account.
Fees Transaction fees for accepting FIAT.
A provider stakes some number of OXT to create a stake deposit.
Anyone can stake OXT on nodes using the smart contract.
Clients select new nodes in proportion to their relative OXT deposit size.
Larger stake deposits thus lead to proportionally more users, bandwidth, and revenue.
If the node is already at max bandwidth capacity additional stake is effectively wasted.
Once tokens have been locked into a stake deposit they can be used immediately for bandwidth provisioning. If the provider wants to withdraw tokens from the staking contract, they have to start an “unlocking” process period, which involves a three month cooldown where their funds cannot be used as a stake deposit or transferred elsewhere by the provider.
No offense to these devs and maybe I am just getting older but even in Trek terms this just sounds like technobabble gobbledegook. How is this better than I pay my provider a yearly fee and I get a VPN like I currently do? They even take crypto as payment. This already feels like a homework assignment, i just want to use the internet.
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How is this better than I pay my provider a yearly fee and I get a VPN like I currently do? They even take crypto as payment.
If you pay for your VPN service with a credit card or other traceable payment, then your identity could potentially be connected to logs of your traffic that way. $0.06/Gb could work out very cheap for low-use people compared to your subscription. The mechanics of it does seem a bit convoluted, but you don't need to dig into that if you don't want, from what I can tell from the app st
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Time to move to...
There are still lots of very good smaller operators who remain very good smaller operators. Places that do it because they are genuinely interested in privacy. The company I deal with [vpnac.org] has servers all over the world but is headquartered out of Romania. Which is perfect. They aren't likely to be a target of acquisition, they are genuinely interested in privacy, and have sufficient infrastructure to have servers all over the world. They offer both OpenVPN and Wireguard connections.
I wouldn't have trusted
Why pay for a VPN (Score:1)
Re:Why pay for a VPN (Score:5, Interesting)
Given that within a month of Opera being acquired by Chinese interests, honeypot tests using only Opera were receiving hits ... yeah, I wouldn't put much trust in anything they put out.
Which is a shame - I loved the whole 'mouse gestures' thing.
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If it is free, who pays the infrastructure? Or you are the product?
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If it is free, who pays the infrastructure? Or you are the product?
The venture capital firms and/or shareholders pay for the infrastructure of that VPN provider, in the hope of "[i]someday[/i]" cash in big, either by IPO, or by being acquired.
Once you become the product of the VPN, is time to move to the next shareholder subsidized free VPN.
Living the shareholder subsidized life means some minor inconveniences like that.
The same applies to delivery apps, ridesharing services, grooming clubs, meal ingredients delivery apps, ligeries delivery apps, etc.
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Probably so. Using a VPN to hide traffic from govs is shirley pretty foolish, but the commercial surveillance and identity modellers for the ad business are scarier to me.
Re:Why pay for a VPN (Score:4, Funny)
After the stories about Crypto AG, I've just assumed that it's a 50/50 chance that the major VPN companies are CIA or NSA fronts.
If spying is inescapable, I can only say the following:
As a Venezuelan living in Venezuela, I can say that I'd rather be spied by the CIA, Mossad or MI5, than be spyed by the SEBIN, G4 or O.
I guess for other countries it would be the same, you would have your preferred agencies, and your "must avoid at all costs" agencies. Just choose a VPN provider that aligns with that.
More consumers have turned to VPNs (Score:2)
> More consumers have turned to VPNs in recent years to counter increasingly invasive digital tracking from search engines
searching google via vpn while being logged in gmail. Right. That definetely works.
More "customers" turned to VPN to hide their exploits. NordVPN was enabling more spammers and botnet masters in 2021 than it did before.
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> searching google via vpn while being logged in gmail. Right. That definetely works.
That's definitely every VPN user out there.
NordShark? (Score:1)
Can't wait!
I applaud this (Score:2)
...so the FBI's resources aren't stretched so thin running TWO front companies.
Save the taxpayer's dollars and consolidate!