Google Is Expanding VPN Service to All Paid Google One Subscribers

Speaking of Google One features, here’s Juli Clover at MacRumors:

Google today announced that its Google VPN feature is expanding to all Google One subscribers, instead of being limited to those who subscribe to the Premium 2TB Google One plan.

VPN by Google One is designed to mask a user’s IP address, preventing sites and apps from collecting that information for location tracking and monitoring activity across the web. It also offers protection from hackers and network operators, similar to any other VPN.

With this change, storage space is the primary differentiating factor between Google One plans. The basic plan offers 100GB of storage, while the Premium plan offers 2TB. There’s also a free tier with 15GB of storage, but it does not include VPN access.

Using a VPN does prevent sites and apps from tracking or monitoring you. But your VPN provider can see every site you visit, and every app you use (other than apps that never do anything on the internet). VPN usage data is so lucrative to a surveillance advertising company that just a few years ago, Facebook was paying users aged 13 to 35 up to $20 per month to use their “Facebook Research” VPN app. A VPN app from Google is a hard pass for me.

★ Thursday, 9 March 2023