Investigating Influencer VPN Ads on YouTube

Akgul, Omer; Roberts, Richard M.; Namara, Moses; Levin, Dave; Mazurek, Michelle L.

doi:10.1109/sp46214.2022.9833633

Cited by 9 publications

(7 citation statements)

References 39 publications

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“…From our VPN provider interviews, we find that providers also mention that they recognize the need for improving user knowledge and consider effective education a key challenge. We also find that dark patterns in the industry may also be a key issue; Figure 1: Example of dark pattern-using countdown timers.♣ multiple VPN providers mention "malicious marketing" issues, including preying upon users' lack of knowledge, and overselling of service, which confirm prior work [1].…”

Section: Rq6: [Alignment Between Vpn Users and Providers]supporting

confidence: 62%

“…Thus indicating that discounts, and marketing around pricing can have a significant effect on them. Prior research suggests that many malicious marketing tactics [1] and dark patterns around discounts are common, which are often used to ensure customer lock-in [20,47]; an example of such a dark pattern in the VPN ecosystem is shown in Figure 1.…”

Section: Rq6: [Alignment Between Vpn Users and Providers]mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…While some work has focused on analyzing technical aspects [11,14,35,45], Weinberg et al [50] focused on evaluating the claims of VPN server locations, and found at least one-third of the 2269 servers were definitely not in the country advertised, and another one-third probably were not in the location they claim. Investigating an overlooked source of security advice, Akgul et al [1] studied 243 YouTube videos containing VPN ads and find a number of concerning misleading claims, including over-promises and exaggerations which may lead to users forming inaccurate mental models of internet safety. There have also been news reports of data breaches, leaks and misuse by VPN providers, some of which were published on VPN recommendation websites [34,38,49,52].…”

Section: Virtual Private Networkmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The first author transcribed all the interviews and the interviews were analyzed using inductive open-coding, and thematic analysis [4]. Although we have nine VPN providers, we have eight transcripts in total because two of the providers opted to interview together 1 and each of them answered each question independently. A primary coder coded all transcripts, and two additional coders independently coded five and three transcripts each.…”

Section: Qualitative Interviews Of Vpn Providersmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…For instance, users using VPNs are essentially transferring trust from their network provider onto the VPN provider, but it is unclear as to what VPN features encourages them to make this shift? On the other hand, the VPN industry has been known to employ various marketing tactics [1] and dark patterns around discounts [20,47], but it is yet unknown if these practices are bound to have any significant effect on VPN users. Moreover, the community has not yet understood VPN providers' incentives in sustaining such dark patterns, nor do we know what efforts they take to foster user confidence in an ecosystem plagued with mistrust.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 4 more Smart Citations

"All of them claim to be the best": Multi-perspective study of VPN users and VPN providers

Ramesh¹,

Vyas²,

Ensafi³

2022

Preprint

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As more users adopt VPNs for a variety of reasons, it is important to develop empirical knowledge of their needs and mental models of what a VPN offers. Moreover, studying VPN users alone is not enough because, in using a VPN, a user essentially transfers trust, say from their network provider, onto the VPN provider. To that end, we are the first to study the VPN ecosystem from both the users' and the providers' perspectives. In this paper, we conduct a quantitative survey of 1,252 VPN users in the U.S. and qualitative interviews of nine providers to answer several research questions regarding the motivations, needs, threat model, and mental model of users and the key challenges and insights from VPN providers. We create novel insights by augmenting our multi-perspective results, and highlight cases where the user and provider perspectives are misaligned. Alarmingly, we find that users rely on and trust VPN review sites, but VPN providers shed light on how they are mostly motivated by money. Worryingly, we find that users have flawed mental models about the protection VPNs provide, and about the data collected by VPNs. We present actionable recommendations for technologists and security and privacy advocates by identifying potential areas to focus efforts and improve the VPN ecosystem.

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Section: Rq6: [Alignment Between Vpn Users and Providers]supporting

confidence: 62%

Section: Rq6: [Alignment Between Vpn Users and Providers]mentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Virtual Private Networkmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Qualitative Interviews Of Vpn Providersmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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"All of them claim to be the best": Multi-perspective study of VPN users and VPN providers

Ramesh¹,

Vyas²,

Ensafi³

2022

Preprint

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Stranger VPNs: Investigating the Geo-Unblocking Capabilities of Commercial VPN Providers

Khan

Sperotto

Ham

et al. 2023

Lecture Notes in Computer Science

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Commercial Virtual Private Network (VPN) providers have steadily increased their presence in Internet culture. Their most advertised use cases are preserving the user's privacy, or circumventing censorship. However, a number of VPN providers nowadays have added what they call a streaming unblocking service. In practice, such VPN providers allow their users to access streaming content that Video-on-Demand (VOD) providers do not provide in a specific geographical region.In this work, we investigate the mechanisms by which commercial VPN providers facilitate access to geo-restricted content, de-facto bypassing VPN-detection countermeasures by VOD providers (blocklists). We actively measure the geo-unblocking capabilities of 6 commercial VPN providers in 4 different geographical regions during two measurements periods of 7 and 4 months respectively. Our results identify two methods to circumvent the geo-restriction mechanisms. These methods consist of:(1) specialized ISPs/hosting providers which do not appear on the blocklists used by content providers to geo-restrict content and (2) the use of residential proxies, which due to their nature also do not appear in those blocklists. Our analysis shows that the ecosystem of the geo-unblocking VPN providers is highly dynamic, adapting their chosen geo-unblocking mechanisms not only over time, but also according to different geographical regions.

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User Motivations of Secure Web Browsing

Balendra,

Maqsood

2023

Lecture Notes in Computer Science

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Investigating Influencer VPN Ads on YouTube

Cited by 9 publications

References 39 publications

"All of them claim to be the best": Multi-perspective study of VPN users and VPN providers

"All of them claim to be the best": Multi-perspective study of VPN users and VPN providers

Stranger VPNs: Investigating the Geo-Unblocking Capabilities of Commercial VPN Providers

User Motivations of Secure Web Browsing

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