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How Popular “FREE” VPN Providers Can Sell Your Data

It is always tempting and alluring to avail of something that comes free. It is a natural fact that people will automatically be inclined toward something that is given for free. Often forgetting that when something is free, then you are the product. 

There are a number of so-called best VPN that make you believe that their services are of high quality and accessible when it is actually not! There is no such free thing, especially any digital services. 

The Risks Of Using Free VPN

It is very crucial to comprehend the fact that why and how the VPN service providers can sell your data and threaten your privacy—making it necessary to exercise caution.

The Appeal Of Free VPN

It always feels magnetic and alluring to avail of free and affordable VPNs, and why not? They work almost similar to that of paid VPNs. but we often neglect and never pay attention to why would someone grant us services of a quality that are free of cost. 

Of course, they also have to generate their revenues. How would they be managing it if they were selling you services totally free? 

The Secret Cost 

To cover and manage the revenue to continue providing you with their alleged free VPN services, they resort to selling your personal data. They usually sell it to advertising companies, strategists, marketers, and third parties. 

By collecting your browsing and online data history.

These standard practices can lead you to have targeted ads, or even face data breaches, and sometimes identity theft too. 

Absence Of Translucency 

One of the biggest downsides of the popular Free VPN providers is the lack of clarity that comes with it while handling your data.  They apparently claim big things, like they have strict no-log policies. 

But the reality could be daunting and scary.  They often engage in selling your data and keeping the records of your logs.

 These unclear and vague policies make it difficult for users to decide about their privacy. 

Seek For Alternates

To mitigate the risks that come with the usage of a free VPN, it has become indispensable to discover and encourage people to opt for paid VPNs. these VPNs have considerable secure and sound privacy policies.

They practice and claim to encrypt your data by the military standard AES-256 encryption, which is a solid cipher, along with the no data logging policy and security protocols.

Furthermore, they even take measures to prevent your data from breaches and exposure to third parties or prying eyes. 

Why Do They Need To Intrude Your Privacy

Let’s investigate why and how VPN providers sell and accumulate your data. 

Selling Your Data

The most dangerous and scary thing to begin with is that some notable and widely used Free VPN providers are seen selling your data. which means your privacy is at stake. Now, the point to ponder is, why and where do they trade your data?

It may sound unsettling, but most of the Free VPN providers are selling your data by means of data mining.

Data mining is the process of extracting data from your device. And the amount of data they can potentially pull from your device is astonishing 

They can trade your messages, browsing histories, numbers, media, and emails. This is the reason why people get unwanted spam messages your email is sold to numerous companies.

This can even lead to ransomware and phishing emails. The sad part is we can’t even claim it illegal because when you are signing up for their account.

They have a clause that states that they can use your data in any form or shape, so you can’t point a finger at them when the rest of the fingers are pointing back at you. 

Marketing Purpose

Since the VPN service providers are not making money out of your subscription, now they have to look for other ways to make money, which means selling and exploiting your data for marketing. 

They extract and retain your data as soon as you browse for something. they exploit this information and analyze which ads to sell you efficiently. 

The other harmful fact is they also sell your data openly to marketing companies and third-party websites. 

How Free Users Benefit Paying Customers 

The problem occurs when the VPN offers Free and paid services to the customers. Just think about why they would provide you with the services when they are not charging for it because they exploit your trust and sell your bandwidth to other users.

BotNets And Exit Nodes

The hackers can easily intrude and take control of all the free accounts in the VPN’s network and develop a huge Botnet that would be used for anonymous malware attacks. It could land you in hot water. 

Time To Switch To Paid VPN

If all these horrendous facts are enough to awaken you, then consider using a paid VPN now! They offer a reliable and secure online experience that is unmatchable to the free version. 

They may charge you a good amount, but this is what it takes for them to provide you high quality and unassailable connections. 

Wrapping Up

For some VPN service providers, money comes before the safety of their customers. But it is in our hands to prevent it and use alternates instead. These include paid VPNs because nothing should matter more than your privacy. 

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