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Why using Google VPN is a terrible idea

Barry has come up with an interesting article from Proton VPN, I think we all know the benefits of
using a good VPN and now Google wants to get in on the act.

If there has ever been a year that demonstrates how central the internet is to society, it is 2020. We
have relied on the internet this year for work, entertainment, and to keep us close to family. But
the freedom and privacy of the internet are under attack. We have seen authoritarian governments
around the world, including in Hong Kong, Iran, Belarus, and many other places, increasingly
clamp down on internet freedoms to maintain power against the will of their citizens.

We have also seen how Big Tech companies increasingly control every aspect of our lives, from
what news we see, to which apps we can use. As the recent US and EU antitrust investigations
highlight, Big Tech companies use their market dominance to disadvantage competitors and
further their control over the internet, putting at risk essential rights, such as privacy, freedom of
speech, and democracy. Against this backdrop, the announcement of a Google VPN is even more
troubling.

What’s wrong with Google VPN?

VPNs have long been essential online tools that provide security, freedom, and most importantly,
privacy. Each day, hundreds of millions of internet users connect to a VPN to prevent their online
activities from being tracked and monitored so that they can privately access web resources. In
other words, the very purpose of a VPN is to prevent the type of surveillance that Google en-

gages in on a massive and unprecedented scale.

Google knows this, and in their whitepaper discussing VPN by Google One, Google acknowledges
that VPN usage is becoming mainstream and that “up to 25% of all internet users accessed a VPN
within the last month of 2019.” Increasing VPN usage unfortunately poses a significant problem
for Google, by making it more difficult to track users across the internet, mine their data, and tar-
get them with advertisements. In short, VPNs undermine Google’s power.

Products like ProtonVPN have long been a threat to Google’s business model because we stand for
something completely different. Proton believes everyone should have access to privacy, security,
and freedom. Our products and business model are centered on the concept of putting privacy first
and giving users control over their online data. Whether it’s ProtonMail, ProtonVPN, or
ProtonDrive, our mission has consistently been to prevent Big Tech companies from misusing
your most private data for profit.