🩸 THE HIDDEN WEB
By Eric Kilomari | Red Blood Journal | October 2025
Source:
🩸 THE HIDDEN WEB
Inside the $44 Billion VPN Industry and the Battle for Online Privacy
By Eric Kilomari | Red Blood Journal | October 2025
“This is not a sponsored video.”
“I am not being paid by any of these companies to promote their products, and I have politely declined sponsorship offers from a couple of these companies.”
— Dr. John Padfield, Business Reform channel (2025)
THE ERA OF INVISIBLE MARKETING
In an internet culture where every second video is “brought to you by” someone, Dr. John Padfield’s refusal to take money from the world’s biggest VPN providers was almost unthinkable.
His video, “What VPNs Do and Don’t Do,” is both a consumer guide and a quiet act of rebellion—a rare attempt to bring transparency to a $44-billion industry that thrives on invisibility.
VPNs (Virtual Private Networks) promise to cloak your digital identity. Ironically, their own marketing footprint is anything but hidden.
Pull Quote:
“VPNs sell invisibility — but buy visibility.”
SPONSORSHIP AS STRATEGY
According to data from influencer-marketing platform NeoReach (Q3 2022), ExpressVPN and NordVPN each spent over $3 million in a single quarter sponsoring YouTube creators. Both ranked among the top five corporate sponsors on the platform that year.
Surfshark, another major player, reportedly partnered with over 2,000 influencers. The message was clear: if privacy couldn’t be bought, its appearance could.
“I value the trust my audience puts in me,” Padfield says in the video. “And I am extremely selective about sponsorships. I do not use the VPNs that offered me deals.”
THE PROMISE OF “COMPLETE PRIVACY”
VPNs are marketed as shields against predatory ISPs—companies like AT&T, Verizon, or Comcast—known to collect and sell vast amounts of user data.
The Federal Trade Commission (2021) warned that ISPs “routinely collect an ocean of consumer location, browsing, and behavioral data.” It’s no wonder consumers turned to VPNs as a kind of digital refuge.
But as the Electronic Frontier Foundation (2025) observed, “VPN providers often over-promise security benefits in advertisements.”
One offender, CyberGhost, markets its service as offering “complete privacy on all devices.” Padfield calls the claim “extremely misleading.”
Pull Quote:
“No VPN can offer complete privacy. Even CyberGhost admits that in their FAQ.”
The truth, experts agree, is simpler: VPNs mask your IP address and encrypt your traffic—but they don’t make you anonymous.
THE PARADOX OF TRUST
When you use a VPN, your internet traffic no longer passes through your Internet Service Provider—it passes through the VPN’s servers. That means your VPN can see everything your ISP once could.
“Basically, you’re trading one middleman for another,” explains Elena Hwang, cybersecurity researcher at the European Data Protection Forum.
Padfield adds: “Nineteen of the top 20 VPNs say they don’t keep logs. Only eleven have had a third-party audit to prove it. Trust, but verify.”
THE KAPE CONNECTION
Ownership often reveals what marketing hides. Three of the most popular VPNs—ExpressVPN, CyberGhost, and Private Internet Access—are owned by Kape Technologies, a company with a controversial past.
Founded in 2011 in Israel as Crossrider, Kape’s early browser extensions were flagged by Malwarebytes, Symantec, and Microsoft Defender as potential security risks and adware. One of its co-founders served in Unit 8200, Israel’s elite cyber-intelligence corps.
In 2018, Crossrider changed its name to Kape Technologies to distance itself from those associations.
“I’m not accusing them of wrongdoing,” says Padfield. “But their corporate history gives me pause. Personally, I wouldn’t use a VPN owned by Kape.”
Sidebar: The VPN Industry by the Numbers (2025)
Global Market Value (2024): $44 billion
Projected Value (2027): $85 billion
Top U.S. Market Share: 20 VPNs control ~60%
VPNs Claiming to Be “Fastest”: 14 of 20
Audited for No-Logs Policy: 11 of 20
(Sources: Statista 2024, PCMag, TechRadar, Security.org, CNET)
THE OUTLIERS: MULLVAD AND PROTON
Two VPNs break the mold: Mullvad (Sweden) and Proton VPN (Switzerland).
Mullvad allows completely anonymous registration—no name, no email, no phone number—and accepts cash by mail. In May 2025, it introduced a groundbreaking feature:
Defense Against AI-Guided Traffic Analysis (DAITA), which masks encrypted data patterns that AI systems use to infer browsing behavior.
Expert Insight:
“AI traffic analysis can often infer what sites users visit even through encryption,” says researcher Elena Hwang. “Mullvad’s DAITA is the first mainstream defense built specifically for that threat.”
Padfield’s second choice, Proton VPN, is part of the Proton AG privacy suite that includes encrypted mail, storage, and password management. “It’s a privacy ecosystem for regular people,” Padfield notes.
Both companies share a rare policy: no influencer sponsorships, no affiliate programs.
MARKETING OVER MEANING
With 14 out of 20 major VPNs claiming to be the fastest and most secure, the market’s language of privacy often collapses into a blur of superlatives.
“Many VPN claims are based more on promotion than precision,” Padfield says. “It’s obvious once you start comparing the numbers.”
Indeed, data aggregated from CNET, PCMag, TechRadar, and Security.org shows wide variance in testing results—suggesting performance depends far more on location, configuration, and server load than on brand promises.
THE PRICE OF PRIVACY
The VPN boom mirrors a growing public awareness of surveillance capitalism. By 2027, the VPN industry is projected to out-earn the entire global pet-food market (Statista, 2024).
But the deeper irony is that privacy itself has become a product—a subscription sold on fear, marketed as freedom, and mediated by trust.
Pull Quote:
“Even privacy must now be branded, sold, and trusted.”
Padfield’s independence—refusing sponsorships from the very companies he critiques—offers a rare model of transparency in the influencer age.
“No VPN can make you completely private,” he concludes. “But some can make you less exposed. The key is knowing who you’re really trusting.”
SOURCES
Electronic Frontier Foundation. (2025). Choosing a VPN: What They Do and Don’t Do.
Federal Trade Commission. (2021). A Look at How ISPs Collect and Use Consumer Data.
NeoReach. (2022). Q3 Influencer Marketing Report.
Symantec Corporation. (2016). Crossrider Browser Extension Threat Report.
Statista. (2024). Global Virtual Private Network (VPN) Market Size 2019–2027.
Aggregated Rankings: CNET, PCMag, TechRadar, Security.org, and Tom’s Guide (October 2025).
Hwang, E. (2025). Interview with the European Data Protection Forum, September 2025.
NEXT ON TOUR
Dr. John Padfield: Business, Technology & Society — Lessons from The Twilight Zone
Nov 1 – Chicago (Arlington Heights, IL)
Nov 4 – Louisville, KY
Nov 8 – Acworth, GA
Nov 19 – Chattanooga, TN
More details at brushfirestour.com