Social media users are calling for the mass cancellation of ExpressVPN subscriptions after it was revealed that a cybersecurity firm with Israeli ties owns the popular privacy service.
In 2021, The Times of Israel reported that Kape Technologies, a British-Israeli digital security company, acquired ExpressVPN, one of the world’s largest virtual private network (VPN) providers, for nearly $1bn.
The calls for cancellation intensified after social media users began circulating information about Teddy Sagi, the Israeli billionaire and owner of Kape Technologies. Many shared that in 2023, as reported by The Jerusalem Post, Sagi donated $1m to transport soldiers during the Israeli war on Gaza.
You’re not kidding. While reading this post, I checked in on ThatOnePrivacyGuy’s VPN table in Google sheets. At the bottom of the table, there’s a link to ThatOnePrivacySite.xyz (the real site) but an ad popped up, as if it was the link you should click on, to ThatOnePrivacySite.net (a fake site). How are people told to ‘just do 10 minutes of research’ supposed to deal with things like aggressive dark patterns and soft linkjacking?
Edit: The fake linkjacked site recommends ExpressVPN as the top VPN. Haiyaaa.