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> And when people _are_ shopping around, they search for things like "best vpn providers 2022" Which coincidentally a number of VPN "review" sites were purchas
by Nadya 4y ago
> And when people _are_ shopping around, they search for things like "best vpn providers 2022"
Which coincidentally a number of VPN "review" sites were purchased and the lists "updated" to recommend a certain owner that I'm fairly certain at this point is a honeypot.
https://restoreprivacy.com/kape-technologies-owns-expressvpn-cyberghost-pia-zenmate-vpn-review-sites/ https://restoreprivacy.com/kape-technologies-owns-expressvpn...
https://www.techradar.com/news/pc-mag-owner-j2-global-buys-sixth-vpn-provider https://www.techradar.com/news/pc-mag-owner-j2-global-buys-s...
Kape Technologies was formerly known as Crossrider before it was acquired by Teddy Sagi, an Israeli billionaire that has spent time in jail for insider trading. Crossrider itself never had that great a reputation itself, what with their primary product being a development platform through which they were frequently used by third parties to invade ad platforms to serve up malware.
- HWR_14 4y agoIIRC, there are quite a few review networks set up like that. John Oliver's Drug Rehabilitation episode pointed out that the same thing happened with "independent" reviews of drug rehabs.
- sam0x17 4y agoCompletely right, but my point is it's the review sites / honeypots that move the needle on whether people will choose A over B, not A or B out-bidding each other in Google Ads.