Matrix Posted November 24, 2019 Share Posted November 24, 2019 Popular VPN provider Private Internet Access (PIA) is set to be acquired by Kape Technologies. This will transform the company into a major player in the VPN industry. The deal has sparked a lively debate about Kape’s intentions and PIA’s future, but the company stresses that it remains committed to protecting the privacy of its users. Private Internet Access, commonly known as , is one of the largest VPN providers in the world. In recent years it’s become a well-established brand that has had its no-logging policy tested in court, with success. This week the company announced that some changes are afoot. PIA’s parent organization LTMI Holdings is in the process of a merger acquisition by the publicly traded Kape Technologies, which also owns the Cyberghost and Zenmate VPN services. As part of the planned deal, Kape will pay $95.5 million. Part of this will be paid in cash, Vox reports, and Kape is also planning to pay the $32.1 million in existing debt PIA has on the books. With the planned merger acquisition Kape hopes to become a dominant force in the VPN industry. “In one acquisition, I believe we have positioned Kape to fast become one of the leading digital privacy service providers in the world, empowering consumers to manage their own data and digital security,” Kape’s CEO Ido Erlichman comments. PIA’s CEO Ted Kim is also pleased with the deal and notes that it will help to improve the digital privacy and security of PIA’s subscribers worldwide. There are no changes planned in the short term. The Private Internet Access name will remain in use for now, just as Cyberghost and Zenmate are still using their original brands. However, the acquisition has raised questions among some users. Some have pointed at Kape’s history. The company had previously operated under the name Crossrider and was active in the advertising space. Among other things, it installed toolbars with ‘potentially unwanted software.’ While the company has since switched to a focus on cybersecurity, this past has made some people suspicious. In an article addressing some of the questions, PIA assured its subscribers that its course is not going to change. According to Chief Communications Officer, Christel Dahlskjaer, privacy and security remain the top priority. “From day one, we have been clear that your privacy is our policy and that the Private Internet Access VPN and our other privacy products exist to bring power to the people. “The people are our stakeholders, and it is to you all, collectively, that we must remain accountable,” Dahlskjaer adds. She points out that PIA worked with Kape’s to establish a shared mission and guiding principles, which reflects the core values. It’s inevitable that any corporate deal in the VPN industry will be watched closely and that’s a good thing. VPN providers rely on trust and should be judged by their actions. The company that protects its customers the best way it can, will ultimately be the most successful. PIA believes that, by teaming up with Kape, it has the best shot at achieving this goal and asks users to give it the time to prove itself. Disclaimer: PIA is one of our sponsors. This article was written independently, as all of our articles are. We generally don’t report on VPN business news but felt that it was good to mention this development. source Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
steven36 Posted November 25, 2019 Share Posted November 25, 2019 Kape owns CyberGhost and you can tell is a sponsored post because 1. this news is a week old 2 . Most PIA users are angry as you can read here and not going to renew . https://old.reddit.com/r/PrivateInternetAccess/comments/dym639/pia_being_purchased_by_cyberghost/ 3 .People don't like change, So nice Job PIA you just lost most of your users . 4. you should never believe nothing TF write about VPNs that sponsor them or Google because the TF owner receive money from them. 5. Kape bought out PIA to reduce it's competition was there main objective and instead of improving it they will scale down on PIA's infrastructure and Merge it with own it's become a CyberGhost clone. They a big VPN company going around buying up other VPNs . Oldest trick in the book same thing M$, Google and Facebook do and if it's not profitable for them they get rid of it. Quote The firm also said it expects annual cost savings of up to $4.5m within the first 12 months, thanks to reductions in infrastructure and back office functions. https://www.cityam.com/london-software-firm-kape-snaps-up-us-cybersecurity-company-for-95m/ Do we have a potential VPN criminal conglomerate? As many of you have already read, Private Internet Access has recently been acquired by a company named Kape Technologies. Kape Technologies is a huge company that also owns the likes of CyberGhost and Zenmate. I decided to read more and found facts that thoroughly shocked me: 1. CyberGhost was acquired by Kape Technologies(previously named Crossrider) back in 2017. Crosrider was known to hide malware/adware in their software and then sell data collected by it. 2. The co-founder of Kape Technologies, Teddy Sagi was sentenced to prison in regards to fraud and bribery back in 1996. 3. CyberGhost was also found to have WebRTC, IPv6 as well as DNS leaks multiple times, risking its users’ privacy. 4. Private Internet Access hired Mark Karpeles (ex-CEO of MT.Gox BitCoin platform) as their CTO. Karpeles was arrested and found guilty when tampering with financial records, trying to hide the platform’s loss by combining his personal finances with the exchange’s. 5. Private Internet Access’s founder Andrew Lee, also known as Rasengan on HackerNews, made serious allegations against ProtonVPN. 6. Allegations against NordVPN followed, where PIA’s employee was caught sharing a misleading PDF as a ‘concerned citizen’. 7. An ex-employee of PIA was threatened due to disclosing management issues, therefore spilling a lot of information about the company. 8. The same employee disclosed that PIA faked Reddit comments and ordered to downvote negative feedback about the product. 9.Another thing to consider is that before acquisition, Private Internet Access was in debt of over $32 million. The facts about these companies were easy to find, to be honest, I didn’t need to dig deep to find them. I am just truthfully shocked about this and how much I didn’t know about the companies beforehand. Personally, given this knowledge, I am not going to support these companies, especially when they potentially have criminal past and present activities. Sources: https://blog.malwarebytes.com/detections/pup-optional-crossrider/ https://en.globes.co.il/en/article-sagis-criminal-past-may-have-sunk-plus500-acquisition-1001083269 https://cointelegraph.com/news/former-mt-gox-ceo-mark-karpeles-to-serve-as-cto-of-new-japanese-blockchain-venture https://www.reddit.com/r/sevengali/comments/9dgexs/why_to_avoid_pia/ https://vpnpro.com/blog/confusion-in-the-vpn-industry-is-nordvpn-being-defamed/ https://linustechtips.com/main/topic/1088904-private-internet-access-internal-problems-post-is-titled-revealing-the-privateinternetaccess-truth/ https://www.techradar.com/news/cyberghost-owner-buys-pia-for-dollar955m-to-create-vpn-giant https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21584958 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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