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J2 Global Acquires SaferVPN as They Expand Their VPN Umbrella Further

By Bill Toulas / July 24, 2019

J2 Global has added yet another VPN vendor in their big family, and this time it is SaferVPN. The brand will now be controlled by NetProtect, a J2 Global company. As we explained in June, investing in small VPN brands makes perfect sense for larger tech companies, as they can buy now cheap and reap the gains later when the VPN market grows even more. As the Global Market Insight predicts, the VPN market will reach a value of $54 billion in five years from now, so this is a huge business opportunity for those who believe in this investment.

Already, J2 Global owns StrongVPN, Encrypt.me, and IPVanish so the addition of SaferVPN is not filling a gap, and it’s unlikely to be the last one of this kind. J2 Global is aggressively investing in small VPN brands that maintain a relatively good market position, respectable userbase, and most importantly, a good reputation. It is this reputation that is going to act as the basis for these small brands to take off during the next couple of years, and with the support of the J2 Global, this growth is secured and guaranteed.

During our tests, SaferVPN scored a respectable 7.8 out of 10, sporting good security, customer support, set of features, configuration, but showing signs of a predicament on the number of servers and the internet speed. This is precisely where the resources from J2 Global could help and turn things around immediately. One element that our expert reviewer loved about SaferVPN is its reputation for handling the user data with great care and responsibility. Now that the firm was acquired by J2 Global, could this somehow change to the worse?

So far, J2 Global has not shown any signs of turning the firms they acquire into data collectors, but as the data market opens up in the future, entities that possess multiple VPN products will have to demonstrate extreme ethics in order to refrain from data-selling practices. Especially if the pressure comes from governments or other compelling authorities, it will be harder to flatly deny sharing anything. We are not saying that J2 Global is by any means planning such a thing, but when a little number of firms acquire all VPN brands, the risks for users become undoubtedly more significant.

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