Privacy vs control: a whack-a-mole game with no clear winners

Date:
Thu, 18 Dec 2025 06:00:00 +0000

Description:
Are authorities going too far in their pursuit of safety?

FULL STORY

VPNs have gained significant attention in 2025, and not all of it has been positive. The technology's role in circumventing age verification measures
and accessing streaming services for reduced prices has consistently landed them in hot water.

Major events, like the arrival of age verification in the UK, have trigged massive increases in VPN demand, with one provider seeing sing-ups rise over 1,000%. Meanwhile, streaming services such as Canal+ have launched legal
action against VPN companies for enabling improper access to their services.

As VPNs become increasingly important for accessing day-to-day services, they sit at the center of a growing conflict between privacy and control. However, have the events of 2025 shown that its a battle authorities simply cant win?
I think so.

The subscription problem

Take streaming. As providers frequently increase prices and tighten geo-restrictions, VPNs have evolved into important tools for securing cheaper deals and unlocking foreign content libraries.

VPNs allow you to connect to a server in your home country if youre traveling, so you can retain access to the content you love. However, it works both
ways and you can just as easily access content that you strictly shouldn't be able to.

This capability drew the attention of streaming giant Canal+ earlier this
year. The streaming service launched a legal case against VPNs, requesting
that they block access to 203 sites identified as hosting pirated football streams.

But, as multiple VPNs have pointed out, these requests are near-impossible to implement without compromising their primary purpose, privacy.

At the time of the initial ruling, a NordVPN spokesperson told TechRadar that adhering to the request while maintaining NordVPNs privacy obligations was impossible. Almost a year later, the sentiment remains the consensus across
the wider industry.

When asked whether Norton VPN was in a similar predicament regarding such requests, Himmat Bains, the company's Senior Principal Product Manager,
simply responded: "The problem is, I dont know how we would."

Legal challenges like the one put forward by Canal+ arent common, and broader attempts to restrict the use of VPNs are even less frequent in democratic regions. So whatll change?

Whether they are enabling safe journalism in conflict zones, bypassing state censorship, or securing personal data against malicious actors, the primary function of these tools is legitimate. As Bains concludes, despite the noise
of 2025: "I dont think the walls are closing in."

Portable piracy

Amazons Fire TV Sticks have faced intense scrutiny throughout the year. The growth of dodgy Fire Sticks has played a key driver in the estimated billions of dollars lost to IPTV piracy every year.

In response, Amazon has rolled out new updates to stop pirated content altogether.

This included creating a blacklist of sites known to show illegal content, which the provider hoped would quash access to pirated content entirely. However, according to Miguel Fornes, a cybersecurity expert at Surfshark, the issue is nowhere near solved.

"Its a kind of whack-a-mole game," Fornes explained. "But its unwhackable."

Once one pirate site is found and blacklisted, its simple enough for the host to simply create a new site and start again. So, there isnt necessarily an
end in sight by going about it this way.

"Its not the final solution," Fornes argues, "because otherwise, youll block the whole internet."

There are legitimate reasons to install a VPN on an amazing Fire TV Stick,
such as wanting to encrypt your data or giving you access to home shows while away. However, this flexibility is a double-edged sword the same ecosystem that benefits legitimate uses also facilitates illegal viewing.

The device's portability adds another layer of complexity. Because users can simply plug the stick into any screen, anywhere, enforcement based on static locations or residential IP addresses becomes significantly harder to
maintain.

The Alliance for Creativity and Entertainment is arguably the biggest collective fighting against online piracy. It has partnered with Amazon for
its Fire TV measures and has Canal+ as one of its figurehead members.

Despite this heavyweight backing and Amazon's recent software crackdowns, the industry has yet to find a silver bullet for the role VPNs play in
facilitating illicit streaming.

What's next?

Amazon's strategy relies on time-consuming collaboration to identify and blacklist individual pirate domains. Furthermore, the targets are constantly moving. Sites like those targeted by Canal+ can simply update their DNS
records or switch Content Delivery Networks (CDNs) to resume operations
within minutes.

Meanwhile, VPN users are protected by the technology's no-logs infrastructure and encryption, making it difficult for authorities to identify people using them to access geo-restricted content.

As Fornes put it, "what Amazon is doing is the right thing", but, from everything we've seen so far, the right thing isn't necessarily enough.

No matter how many pirated sites are shut down and by what means, access to VPNs will remain constant due to their many legitimate uses. While legal pressure on providers may increase, the technical limitations of enforcing broad blocking requests suggest that VPNs will remain a persistent thorn in
the side of authorities attempting to regain control.

We test and review VPN services in the context of legal recreational uses.
For example:1. Accessing a service from another country (subject to the terms and conditions of that service).2. Protecting your online security and strengthening your online privacy when abroad.We do not support or condone using a VPN service to break the law or conduct illegal activities. Consuming pirated content that is paid-for is neither endorsed nor approved by Future Publishing.

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Link to news story: https://www.techradar.com/computing/cyber-security/privacy-vs-control-a-whack- a-mole-game-with-no-clear-winners
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