NordVPN Participates in Comprehensive VPN Industry Principles

The VTI Principles Offer Virtual Private Network (VPN) Providers Comprehensive, Neutral Guidelines for Delivering Services in Alignment with Expert-Informed Industry Best Practices

 

WASHINGTON D.C., September 30, 2020 – NordVPN has committed to meeting the VPN Trust Initiative (VTI) Principles revealed today by the Internet Infrastructure Coalition (“i2Coalition”), the leading voice for web hosting companies, data centers, domain registrars and registries, cloud infrastructure providers, managed services providers and other foundational Internet technologies.

 

The VPN Trust Initiative formally launched in December 2019 as a consortium of VPN business leaders focused on building understanding, strengthening trust and mitigating risk for VPN users and providers. The VTI is dedicated to ensuring VPN users gain the most benefits from this technology.

 

The VTI Principles offer a comprehensive set of best practices for VPNs providers to bolster consumer confidence and provider accountability and ultimately increase VPN adoption and access to the technology’s benefits.

 

The VTI Principles have been informed by input from civil society and other outside experts to protect the privacy and security of VPN users, offer practical policy guidelines for VPN providers and ensure policymakers, regulators and the wider market have access to criteria for evaluating these technologies. The principles focus on five key areas: security, privacy, advertising practices, disclosure and transparency and social responsibility.

 

As a leader in the VPN industry, NordVPN lends weight and credibility to the VTI Principles in its participation.

 

“The release of VTI Principles and Standards sets a bar for the whole industry,” said Tom Okman, co-founder of NordVPN. “In the last few years, the number of VPN service providers has skyrocketed. From the societal point of view, this is a positive turn, giving people freedom of choice on how and by whom their data should be handled. However, the rapid industry growth has also brought a lack of clarity. VPN providers operate in different ways, and not necessarily all of them apply the best standards when developing their service. VTI understood that and sought to create a set of principles: guidelines on which the services could rely. We hope that these principles will help the industry to become more trustworthy, transparent and secure.”

 

The VTI formally launched in December 2019 as an industry-led and member-driven consortium of VPN business leaders focused on building understanding, strengthening trust and mitigating risk for VPN users and providers. The VTI is dedicated to creating and releasing resources to serve as a singular voice that provides appropriate and accurate industry-led stewardship.

 

“Releasing the VTI Principles is an inaugural step in what is an ongoing process of aligning industry voices to advocate, create, vet and validate industry policies and guidelines, and we’re excited to see the benefits for the market grow through their adoption,” said Christian Dawson, Co-Founder of the i2Coalition. “By creating and distributing resources such as the VTI Principles to the market, we’re helping to establish a beneficial and self-regulated accountability model that not only ensures trust and security, it helps the reputation and use of these important VPN technologies to thrive, driving greater adoption.”

 

The founding five VTI members include: ExpressVPN; NordVPN; VyprVPN; Surfshark; and NetProtect (whose VPN brands include encrypt.me, WLVPN, SugarSync, IPVanish, StrongVPN, OverPlay, and SaferVPN). Companies that have since joined the initiative include Ivacy VPN, CloudFlare, Mysterium Network, GoldenFrog, Hide.me and WeVPN.

 

The VTI aims to reach consumers, legislators and technologists, promoting appropriate industry-led stewardship, providing accurate information to policymakers, informing the greater technology sphere and collaboratively establishing solutions to pressing VPN challenges.

 

To learn more about the VTI, please click here.

 

To learn more about the i2Coalition and explore membership, please visit www.i2coalition.com.

 

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About NordVPN
NordVPN is the world’s most advanced VPN service provider, used by over 14 million internet users worldwide. NordVPN provides double VPN encryption, malware blocking, and Onion Over VPN. The product is very user-friendly, offers one of the best prices on the market, has over 5,000 servers in 60 countries worldwide, and is P2P-friendly. One of the key features of NordVPN is zero-log policy. For more information: nordvpn.com.

 

About i2Coalition’s VPN Trust Initiative

i2Coalition’s VPN Trust Initiative (VTI) is an industry-led consortium that promotes consumer safety and privacy online by increasing understanding of VPNs and strengthening business practices in an industry that already protects millions of Internet users. The VTI leverages first-hand knowledge to advocate, create, vet, and validate guidelines that strengthen trust and transparency and mitigate risk for users.

 

About the i2Coalition

The Internet Infrastructure Coalition (“i2Coalition”) ensures that those who build the infrastructure of the Internet have a voice in public policy. We are a leading voice for web hosting companies, data centers, domain registrars and registries, cloud infrastructure providers, managed services providers, and related tech. We protect innovation and the continued growth of the Internet’s infrastructure which is essential to the global economy. Our coalition launched at a significant time in our industry’s history. The genesis of the organization began in 2011 when many of the i2Coalition founding and charter members joined forces during the successful effort to prevent SOPA and PIPA from becoming United States law. After mobilizing to ensure the Internet’s free flow of information and commerce, we realized the on-going need for an industry voice, founding formally in 2012.