The CDT has filed a complaint against the Hotspot Shield which is a free virtual private network service provider for violating its own privacy policies.
The CDT has filed a complaint against the Hotspot Shield which is a free virtual private network service provider for violating its own privacy policies. According to the complaint registered by CDT(Center for Democracy & Technology) with the federal trade commission authorities, the company which guarantees their customer privacy and security are sharing customers information with other third party apps and exposing customers data. Virtual private network is used to add security and privacy to the public and private network which will help users to send and receive data securely across the network. Hotspot Shield is a free VPN service application by AnchorFree company, and it has around 500 million customers around the world.
In the complaint filed by CDT, it says “Hotspot Shield’s description for its iOS and Android mobile applications declares a “no logs” policy; however, its Privacy Policy, which covers and includes its Hotspot Shield services, describes more elaborate logging practices.”It is also mentioned that company also injects Malicious Ads and JavaScript into users Browsers. In further research, it has been discovered that they also redirect traffic to their partnering domains. When a user access a commercial website through VPN service, then the application can intercept and redirect HTTP request to their partnering websites which include online advertising companies In a statement given to the media; Hotspot has denied this allegation and David Gorodynasky, CEO of parent company AnchorFree said that "We strongly believe in online consumer privacy, This means that the information Hotspot Shield users provide to us are never associated with their online activities when they are using Hotspot Shield, we do not store user IP addresses and protect user personally identifiable information from both third parties and from ourselves." "While we commend the CDT for their dedication to protecting users' privacy, we were surprised by these allegations and dismayed that the CDT did not contact us to discuss their concerns," he added. "AnchorFree prides itself on being transparent about its data practices and would be happy to engage in a discussion to clarify the facts and better understand the nature of the CDT's concerns".