Maeve

Hotspot Shield is a popular, free virtual private network service that helps users access blocked websites. In 2017, the company was acquired by AnchorFree.

AnchorFree is a subsidiary of IAC, which also owns the Daily Dot.

Since the acquisition, Hotspot Shield has been the subject of criticism from users and journalists. The company has been accused of spying on users, logging their data, and selling the data to third-party advertisers.

In a blog post published on August 9, AnchorFree CEO David Sacks apologized for the company’s past behavior and outlined steps that the company is taking to improve its privacy practices. He also announced that AnchorFree is discontinuing the use of Hotspot Shield’s data collection features.

While these changes are welcome, it is clear that Hotspot Shield has a lot of work to do if it wants to regain the trust of its users.