After India, US now aims to begin crackdown on VPN service providers

After India, the US lawmakers have now asked the Lina Khan-led Federal Trade Commission (FTC) to address abusive and deceptive data practices by hundreds of companies providing Virtual Private Network (VPN) services for individuals.

A VPN is an online service that purports to give users more security when connecting to the Internet.

However, said the lawmakers, the consumer VPN industry is rife with deceptive advertising and abusive data practices.

The letter by Anna G. Eshoo (D-CA) and Ron Wyden (D-OR) describe several abusive practices in the consumer VPN industry, including promoting false and misleading claims about their services, selling user data and providing user activity logs to law enforcement, despite promises of ‘total anonymity,’ and a lack of oversight of the industry in general.