AirVPN becomes an EFF Super Major Donor

[Staff 9969]

Hello!

We proudly announce that today AirVPN has become an Electronic Frontier Foundation "Super Major Donor".

The Electronic Frontier Foundation is the leading nonprofit organization defending civil liberties in the digital world. Founded in 1990, EFF champions user privacy, free expression, and innovation through impact litigation, policy analysis, grassroots activism, and technology development. We work to ensure that rights and freedoms are enhanced and protected as our use of technology grows. https://www.eff.org

Check our mission page: https://airvpn.org/mission

Kind regards and datalove
AirVPN Staff
 

[OpenSourcerer 1435]

I'm not sure how to judge Google's 1M donation to the EFF, though. Is this a good sign or a downright sign that EFF does things in favor of Google? One does not simply donate such a sum to someone, especially if you're a tech giant donating to a tech-oriented organization.

[Staff 9969]

@giganerd

Hello!

It's an interesting consideration. In nowadays world some choices are hard, either because you do not have enough evidence or because astroturfing and other operations are ongoing.  At some point you must make a decision. We have carefully evaluated EFF operations especially on legal and law procedural grounds, software releases and informative/educational articles, and we have found an outstanding work.

We do not believe that Google huge sponsoring amount might impair EFF operations in the field of privacy (which is in our opinion a threat to Google current model and even more in the growing practical AI applications), at least not in the near future, and we hope that this is not the beginning of a "capture by sponsorship" (something which sinisterly reminds "regulatory capture" by big companies, although the means are different) which happened multiple times, for example with newspapers and publishers: I am a giant company and progressively buy your newspaper spaces for my ads, until you depend on me economically; then one day I tell you "do not publish that, rather publish this, or else I will withdraw all of my ads from one day to another".

Take Tor, as an additional example. It's no secret that we have significantly supported Tor and the Tor Project in the last years. However, the Tor Project has been funded almost entirely by the former Broadcasting Board of Governors  (BBG, now USAGM), the US Navy and the US Department of State bureau for Human Rights for years. Is this enough reason to drop Tor and not use it anymore? No, because we have total lack of substantial evidence about backdoors to favor any the mentioned agencies or anybody else, and that a person that should be above any suspect under this context (Edward Snowden) recommends Tor usage.

Eyes must always remain wide open but at the same time if you get lost in a network of theories and you see conspirators everywhere you risk to get stuck and never act.

Kind regards
 

[Overkill 4]

On 4/25/2019 at 2:45 PM, giganerd said:

I'm not sure how to judge Google's 1M donation to the EFF, though. Is this a good sign or a downright sign that EFF does things in favor of Google? One does not simply donate such a sum to someone, especially if you're a tech giant donating to a tech-oriented organization.

In Google's case it's basically tax deductions and good PR.

[flat4 79]

This is great news
 

[air521745 2]

Just wanted to add my thanks as well. Private companies are under no such obligations, so every gesture in helping out like this is really appreciated.
Couldn't find Air's banner on the EFF's Thanks page though, so make sure they actually add it at some point.

Next stop; FSFE.org.

[Flic 2]

Now this is great news. Well done Air.
I have done lots of checking up on EFF, and I am a fan of their work.
Now it feels to me that your 'super contributions' to EFF includes just a little bit from me via my Air subscription.... ... I like it