The VPN Trust Institute Launches to Promote Consumer Safety and Privacy Online

Founding members include NordVPN, Golden Frog (VyprVPN), ExpressVPN, and NetProtect.

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The Internet Infrastructure Coalition (i2Coalition) is launching the VPN Trust Institute to promote consumer safety and privacy online.

Those are all noble goals — which we’re also promoting on a daily basis — but we gotta wonder how will the newly launched body do its job. But first, let’s see what i2Coalition is all about…

i2Coalition explained

The i2Coalition is a trade association representing those responsible for building and maintaining the internet’s infrastructure. This includes web hosting companies, data centers, domain registrars and registries, cloud infrastructure providers, managed services providers, and related tech.

i2Coalition

The organization seeks to uphold an open internet “as an engine for growth and innovation.” As a means to this end, the i2Coalition works hand-in-hand with those in the tech industry as an advocate for privacy, champion for best practices, and voice for internet infrastructure awareness.

What’s the point of the VPN Trust Initiative?

As noted above, with the VPN Trust Initiative (VTI), the i2Coalition aims to promote consumer safety and privacy online. Its founding members include major VPN companies such as NordVPN, Golden Frog (VyprVPN), ExpressVPN, and NetProtect (encrypt.me, WLVPN, SugarSync, IPVanish, StrongVPN, OverPlay, SaferVPN). Together, they will work on increasing the public’s understanding of VPNs and further strengthening business practices in the VPN industry.

Ultimately, the VTI’s goal is to create more transparency and trust and make the internet safer for all. The VTI members — and other reputable VPN providers for that matter — provide encryption to protect users’ internet data, while also masking their true IP addresses, and empowering them against undue online restrictions and censorship.

What will VTI do?

Specifically, the VTI seeks to address VPN concerns, and proactively solve associated challenges by:

  • Defining VPN best practices
  • Designing and reinforcing industry standards
  • Providing accurate information to government officials and policymakers
  • Promoting appropriate industry-led regulations
  • Informing the wider technology industry

The VTI hopes to create change by reaching three key groups: legislators, technologists, and end-users. This, in turn, will facilitate a more self-regulatory industry and alter the trajectory of VPN discourse through the advocacy, creation, and validation of policies that strengthen trust and transparency while mitigating risk for users.

While ethical practices and thorough industry standards are key to ensuring safety and trust from users, legislation that is not conscientiously crafted and backed by insider industry expertise would be disastrous for the industry, for online free speech, and for further innovation using VPN technology.

In other words, VTI is gearing up for a lot of work ahead.

According to Statista’s research, the global VPN market is predicted to reach $35.73 billion in 2022 and VTI hopes to play its role in hitting (and perhaps even surpassing) that figure — all while making sure users keep their rights to privacy online.