8 ms·

There are billboards for Mullvad all over Chicago which kind of weird me out.

ziddoap 2y ago
They do traditional advertising (billboards being one example) instead of paid reviews, affiliate/influencer advertising, etc. https://mullvad.net/en/help/policy-reviews-advertising-and-affiliates https://mullvad.net/en/help/policy-reviews-advertising-and-a...
- neuronexmachina 2y ago
  Oh wow, I wish more companies had pages like that summarizing what sort of marketing/advertising they do/don't use.
  - ziddoap 2y ago
    I’m fanboying at this point, but I honestly believe Mullvad should be the poster child for a lot of things other companies should be doing. Transparency, accountability, data minimization, thorough documentation, publicly available audits, etc.
    - hughesjj 2y ago
      I've been a happy expressvpn customer since dec 2016 but I'm sincerely considering switching to mullvad at this point
nick238 2y ago
[flagged]
- ziddoap 2y ago
  Holy unsubstantiated accusations, batman. This can be instantly disproved by examining the cases where valid warrants were presented to them by LEAs and they were unable to provide any user data.
  - lambdaxyzw 2y ago
    Also they actually make it easy to use their services without providing any data - you can use them by paying Monero over tor, and the only thing identifying you is a short unique "identifying number" - no emails, no names, not even an account.
    - ziddoap 2y ago
      Indeed. They even accept cash via envelope -- just provide an account number to put the cash towards.
    - yencabulator 2y ago
      I find their gimmick of "buy a physical gift card from Amazon, scratch to reveal one-time code" to be pretty genius. It's just a bulk pile of cards, Amazon records you bought one but doesn't know which one (and the actual code is under a scratch-to-reveal surface). Even if a three-letter agency intercepted your package and swapped your gift card with a known code, I believe Mullvad is not recording the connection between specific gift code and the account number. You can also exchange unscratched gift cards with friends and strangers.
  - nick238 2y ago
    I'm not saying it's substantiated at all, it just feels very sudden and too weird.
- kfreds 2y ago
  It's quite simple really. 1. We launched Mullvad 15 years ago. During those 15 years people's interest and awareness of online security and privacy has grown considerably, as has the consumer VPN market. 2. Our strategy is quite different from most of our competitors'. As a result we've grown slower than several of them, but we have nevertheless continued to grow year after year. 3. The costs of the campaign are perhaps lower than you assume. tl;dr We've slowly grown over many years and are now making enough money to plaster privacy propaganda over your city. Hopefully it's an interesting change from the usual bus ads. Enjoy!
kfreds 2y ago
I'm sorry you feel that way, but I can relate. I initially had mixed feelings about it as well. On the other hand the campaign we did in Stockholm last year worked out quite well. It managed to affect both domestic and EU legislative discussions at the time. Or at least our campaign contributed to moving the discussion in the right direction. How much is that worth? I'm not sure, but the reason we started Mullvad in the first place was to conduct political action through entrepreneurship, specifically regarding mass surveillance and censorship. If nothing else it seems to amuse a lot of people, including me and my colleagues. When I first heard of the idea of plastering privacy propaganda all over some major U.S. cities my initial reaction was more or less "lol, we can just do that?". As it turns out we can. :)
- nickburns 2y ago
  thank you for offering up in this forum at least your own personal contributions to your organization's position on its advertising campaigns. not sure if any official statements on the matter have been made elsewhere, but you've assuaged at least my own slight concern about it with this one. truly. (and by 'truly' i mean i've been meaning to stuff some cash in an envelope addressed to you guys!) transparency is absolutely a corporate virtue.
  - dhsh 2y ago
    73796204hdbueojs NjIjdj72827823738638383873838738383+?@ Hdhshshsjnhdjzjjskshnsksjsjajsnbsnzkznnskwysnekeodiyfhdhjeoxuhdndkxixhdjndkdidihdbdjdkdudjdjskiskkdkddkjdkdighxnndnehdjisjsbzihxbduehsnsjjsjhduddxdudidndudjddbzbnzsiiek728747296482£+389293939jsjbzdhdhbdbdjdjndjdjfjfjncnfjmcjfnfnfnnf84833837939383⁸3883838387492937839288393828299299298938379393479499484⁸494484984934848393784948749482⁹33939838399444975949 1
- j0e1 2y ago
  Thank you for sharing that! I am definitely part of the HN group think that tends to be irked by mass marketing- mainly because of baggage from the past of false advertising. However, I do agree that getting the non-IT geek's attention is what would actually move the needle for political action. I was amused (mostly surprised) to see a billboard while driving down the 110 in LA. More importantly, it led to a cool discussion with my non-tech wife who now appreciates your guys' brand more. :)
starttoaster 2y ago
What is it about a company spreading awareness about their product that weirds you out in particular, I'm curious? Billboard advertisements are an awareness type of advertisement. I'd be much more concerned to learn about paid endorsements, which they document on their website that they specifically do not do. Endorsements are a much more sensitive form of advertising, where once money trades hands for an endorsement, it stops being a useful third party assessment and starts being an advertisement disguised as a third party assessment. Awareness advertisements just make good business sense, so I'm genuinely curious why those would shy anybody away.
- epcoa 2y ago
  I saw them on the side of a CTA bus for the first time the other day. I don’t think it is bad at all, but the initial reaction for me as an American used to typical bus advertising it was exactly as if seeing an ad for 4chan there. It just isn’t the expected modality for the product. (Seeing the reply down thread from a Mullvad rep, this is not unexpected)
- int_19h 2y ago
  I agree with you, but I also understand where GP is coming from. For the past 20 years, what people are mostly exposed to is internet ads, which are, to put it mildly, pushy. As a result, all ads now have to deal with considerable negative sentiment as a baseline simply by virtue of being ads.
- snowwrestler 2y ago
  My concern with the Mullvad ads is that some are essentially lying about what their product does. One of the ads I recall said something like: > Imagine an ad that won’t track you after you see it > Mullvad VPN That’s not what a VPN does though. Tunneling my browsing does not stop sites from serving ads, setting cookies, fingerprinting browsers, etc.
  - xnyan 2y ago
    > That’s not what a VPN does though. Mullvad itself is extremely clear that use of a VPN alone is not enough for the reasons you stated. Mullvad VPN (which is what they advertised) is a suite of products and services, some of which are: - DNS services (ads, tracking) - A privacy-optimized browser (cookies, fingerprinting) - Network services like multihop routing (many benefits such as resistance to timing attacks) All of these services are included with your subscription at no additional cost. I feel like the claim of preventing ad tracking is as legitimate as it could possibly be.

They do traditional advertising (billboards being one example) instead of paid reviews, affiliate/influencer advertising, etc. https://mullvad.net/en/help/policy-reviews-advertising-and-affiliates https://mullvad.net/en/help/policy-reviews-advertising-and-a...

neuronexmachina 2y ago
Oh wow, I wish more companies had pages like that summarizing what sort of marketing/advertising they do/don't use.
- ziddoap 2y ago
  I’m fanboying at this point, but I honestly believe Mullvad should be the poster child for a lot of things other companies should be doing. Transparency, accountability, data minimization, thorough documentation, publicly available audits, etc.
  - hughesjj 2y ago
    I've been a happy expressvpn customer since dec 2016 but I'm sincerely considering switching to mullvad at this point

nick238 2y ago

[flagged]

ziddoap 2y ago
Holy unsubstantiated accusations, batman. This can be instantly disproved by examining the cases where valid warrants were presented to them by LEAs and they were unable to provide any user data.
- lambdaxyzw 2y ago
  Also they actually make it easy to use their services without providing any data - you can use them by paying Monero over tor, and the only thing identifying you is a short unique "identifying number" - no emails, no names, not even an account.
  - ziddoap 2y ago
    Indeed. They even accept cash via envelope -- just provide an account number to put the cash towards.
  - yencabulator 2y ago
    I find their gimmick of "buy a physical gift card from Amazon, scratch to reveal one-time code" to be pretty genius. It's just a bulk pile of cards, Amazon records you bought one but doesn't know which one (and the actual code is under a scratch-to-reveal surface). Even if a three-letter agency intercepted your package and swapped your gift card with a known code, I believe Mullvad is not recording the connection between specific gift code and the account number. You can also exchange unscratched gift cards with friends and strangers.
- nick238 2y ago
  I'm not saying it's substantiated at all, it just feels very sudden and too weird.
kfreds 2y ago
It's quite simple really. 1. We launched Mullvad 15 years ago. During those 15 years people's interest and awareness of online security and privacy has grown considerably, as has the consumer VPN market. 2. Our strategy is quite different from most of our competitors'. As a result we've grown slower than several of them, but we have nevertheless continued to grow year after year. 3. The costs of the campaign are perhaps lower than you assume. tl;dr We've slowly grown over many years and are now making enough money to plaster privacy propaganda over your city. Hopefully it's an interesting change from the usual bus ads. Enjoy!

kfreds 2y ago

I'm sorry you feel that way, but I can relate. I initially had mixed feelings about it as well. On the other hand the campaign we did in Stockholm last year worked out quite well. It managed to affect both domestic and EU legislative discussions at the time. Or at least our campaign contributed to moving the discussion in the right direction. How much is that worth? I'm not sure, but the reason we started Mullvad in the first place was to conduct political action through entrepreneurship, specifically regarding mass surveillance and censorship. If nothing else it seems to amuse a lot of people, including me and my colleagues. When I first heard of the idea of plastering privacy propaganda all over some major U.S. cities my initial reaction was more or less "lol, we can just do that?". As it turns out we can. :)

nickburns 2y ago
thank you for offering up in this forum at least your own personal contributions to your organization's position on its advertising campaigns. not sure if any official statements on the matter have been made elsewhere, but you've assuaged at least my own slight concern about it with this one. truly. (and by 'truly' i mean i've been meaning to stuff some cash in an envelope addressed to you guys!) transparency is absolutely a corporate virtue.
- dhsh 2y ago
  73796204hdbueojs NjIjdj72827823738638383873838738383+?@ Hdhshshsjnhdjzjjskshnsksjsjajsnbsnzkznnskwysnekeodiyfhdhjeoxuhdndkxixhdjndkdidihdbdjdkdudjdjskiskkdkddkjdkdighxnndnehdjisjsbzihxbduehsnsjjsjhduddxdudidndudjddbzbnzsiiek728747296482£+389293939jsjbzdhdhbdbdjdjndjdjfjfjncnfjmcjfnfnfnnf84833837939383⁸3883838387492937839288393828299299298938379393479499484⁸494484984934848393784948749482⁹33939838399444975949 1
j0e1 2y ago
Thank you for sharing that! I am definitely part of the HN group think that tends to be irked by mass marketing- mainly because of baggage from the past of false advertising. However, I do agree that getting the non-IT geek's attention is what would actually move the needle for political action. I was amused (mostly surprised) to see a billboard while driving down the 110 in LA. More importantly, it led to a cool discussion with my non-tech wife who now appreciates your guys' brand more. :)

starttoaster 2y ago

What is it about a company spreading awareness about their product that weirds you out in particular, I'm curious? Billboard advertisements are an awareness type of advertisement. I'd be much more concerned to learn about paid endorsements, which they document on their website that they specifically do not do. Endorsements are a much more sensitive form of advertising, where once money trades hands for an endorsement, it stops being a useful third party assessment and starts being an advertisement disguised as a third party assessment. Awareness advertisements just make good business sense, so I'm genuinely curious why those would shy anybody away.

epcoa 2y ago
I saw them on the side of a CTA bus for the first time the other day. I don’t think it is bad at all, but the initial reaction for me as an American used to typical bus advertising it was exactly as if seeing an ad for 4chan there. It just isn’t the expected modality for the product. (Seeing the reply down thread from a Mullvad rep, this is not unexpected)
int_19h 2y ago
I agree with you, but I also understand where GP is coming from. For the past 20 years, what people are mostly exposed to is internet ads, which are, to put it mildly, pushy. As a result, all ads now have to deal with considerable negative sentiment as a baseline simply by virtue of being ads.
snowwrestler 2y ago
My concern with the Mullvad ads is that some are essentially lying about what their product does. One of the ads I recall said something like: > Imagine an ad that won’t track you after you see it > Mullvad VPN That’s not what a VPN does though. Tunneling my browsing does not stop sites from serving ads, setting cookies, fingerprinting browsers, etc.
- xnyan 2y ago
  > That’s not what a VPN does though. Mullvad itself is extremely clear that use of a VPN alone is not enough for the reasons you stated. Mullvad VPN (which is what they advertised) is a suite of products and services, some of which are: - DNS services (ads, tracking) - A privacy-optimized browser (cookies, fingerprinting) - Network services like multihop routing (many benefits such as resistance to timing attacks) All of these services are included with your subscription at no additional cost. I feel like the claim of preventing ad tracking is as legitimate as it could possibly be.