Paid $150 for a 'privacy VPN' that sold my browsing data to ad companies

I signed up for this VPN called ShieldSecure about six months ago. They claimed they never logged anything and your data was totally anonymous. Last week I saw a report from some security researcher that found ShieldSecure was actually selling aggregated browsing habits to third party ad networks. I checked my bank statements and I spent $150 on the yearly plan. Thats about 25 bucks a month for nothing but a slower connection and false promises. I canceled immediately but I doubt theyll refund me. Has anyone else gotten tricked by these fake privacy services?

2 comments

2 Comments

jennysullivan1mo ago

Actually ShieldSecure's privacy policy (I read the whole thing when I signed up) explicitly said they could share "anonymized aggregate data" with partners. That's pretty standard language, I think a lot of people just skip over those parts. $150 for a yearly plan breaks down to $12.50 a month, not $25 like you said, which matters because their pricing is actually in line with other VPNs out there. The security researcher's report probably missed that ShieldSecure was using that data to help small businesses target ads, which isn't exactly selling your personal browsing history to sketchy outfits. You got a functional VPN that blocked trackers and encrypted your traffic, and the data sharing was in the fine print you agreed to. Honestly, if you want total privacy from everything, you should probably just use Tor and pay cash for everything, but that's a whole different ballgame.

king.stella1mo ago

Yeah the "anonymized aggregate data" thing is such a clever loophole. I looked into ShieldSecure after seeing that same report and their privacy policy basically says they can bundle up your browsing habits by location and interests and sell that to ad networks as long as they strip your name off it. That's still selling your data, just with a nicer label. A VPN is supposed to be a one way street where your data goes in and nothing comes out the other end. If they're feeding any version of your usage to anyone for money, you paid to be the product.