John Paul M. Joaquin Tech 07.18.2022 03:Jul AM EDT

FTC Urged to Address Issues in the VPN Industry

Virtual Private Networks (VPNs) have become the very thing they swore to destroy - deceptive.

Democratic Representatives Anna Eshoo and Ron Wyden recently wrote a letter that calls on the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) to take enforcement actions against VPNs that engage in deceptive advertising and data collection practices that puts people's privacies at risk.

The letter follows the Supreme Court's controversial overturn of Roe. v. Wade case on June 24, per The Guardian.

Eshoo and Wyden VPN-Tackling Letter Details

Representatives Eshoo and Wyden mentioned in their letter to the FTC that there are VPN providers that have engaged in deceptive advertising and data collection practices in light of the Roe v. Wade overturn by the Supreme Court.

The two representatives are worried that these deceptive VPN companies would violate users' privacy rights and retain information about those seeking abortion in states that have outlawed and criminalized abortion.

"It's extremely difficult for someone to decipher which VPN service to trust, especially for those in crisis situations," Eshoo and Wyden said in the letter. "There are hundreds, if not thousands, of VPN services available to donwload, yet there is a lack of practical tools or independent research to audit VPN providers' security claims."

The two representatives then brought up the existence of third-party reviews of the VPNs available to purchase and use in the market, which, while useful, could be deceptive.

They stated that while customers refer to these third-party review sites, some were owned by the companies that also own said VPN service, providing a biased view of the VPN in question.

They then cited a Consumer Reports study that found that 75% of leading VPN providers misrepresented their products and technology or made hyperbolic claims about the protection they provide users on their websites. These misrepresentations include the use of the statement "military-grade encryption," which doesn't exist.

This misrepresentation is a major concern as leading groups advise women seeking abortions to purchase and use a VPN with "no-log" policies, due to them not keeping a record of users' data. These data include internet activity logs, such as visits to websites providing information about abortion, as well as users' log-in credentials, IP addresses, emails, and home addresses.

However, the representatives claim that VPNs' "no-log policy" is difficult to prove as legitimate. A report made in 2020 revealed that some VPN providers claimed they don't hold on to users' data did otherwise, keeping 1.2 terabytes of user data and internet activity logs to be given to law enforcement.

Other reports support the idea that there are VPNs that claim to not hold onto users' data but were revealed to have done so without permission to report them to law enforcement

The studies mentioned in the representatives' letter reveal that VPNs are not as reliable as some believe, and with abortion being illegal or soon to be illegal in 13 states and severely restricted in many more, these acts were deemed deceitful and unacceptable.

Roe V. Wade Overturn Effect

The Roe v. Wade legal case is a landmark case in which a woman's right to terminate a pregnancy was guaranteed under the constitutional right to privacy, according to Britannica.

However, the Supreme Court's ruling of 6-3 in favor of overturning the case sparked outrage across the US, with President Biden calling the act "a tragic error, per The Wall Street Journal.

The Supreme Court overturned the case due to the court upholding a Mississippi law that bans abortion after 15 weeks of pregnancy, per Reuters.

Following the overturning, many tech companies became targets of public appeal to the FTC to investigate them for collecting personal information without proper consent, such as Apple and Google.

Some women's rights groups even urged people who want an abortion to either delete period tracking apps and/or use a VPN to hide their identity while surfing the web.