Fix markdown errors

docs/posts/the-trouble-with-vpn-and-privacy-review-sites.md

@@ -14,11 +14,11 @@ license: BY-SA
 ---
 # The Trouble with VPN and Privacy Review Sites
 
-There’s a massive problem in the privacy world. Websites, social media accounts, and other platforms are constantly popping up out of nowhere, telling you to buy _The Greatest Service Ever_ in order to solve all your privacy woes, whatever that may be. These websites often employ marketing teams to make sure their “reviews” are what you see first when you begin your research. Some of them are even operated by VPN providers themselves, operating under anonymous business entities to hide their bias, or doing it right out in the open, hoping you’ll mistake their advertising-filled press releases and blogs as insider knowledge of the VPN space.<!-- more -->
+There’s a massive problem in the privacy world. Websites, social media accounts, and other platforms are constantly popping up out of nowhere, telling you to buy *The Greatest Service Ever* in order to solve all your privacy woes, whatever that may be. These websites often employ marketing teams to make sure their “reviews” are what you see first when you begin your research. Some of them are even operated by VPN providers themselves, operating under anonymous business entities to hide their bias, or doing it right out in the open, hoping you’ll mistake their advertising-filled press releases and blogs as insider knowledge of the VPN space.<!-- more -->
 
 When a seemingly “unbiased review” on a site is merely a paid advertisement in disguise, that website is breaking their reader’s trust. From a consumer’s point of view, affiliate marketing and other paid promotional techniques like this make it near impossible to know when a review is genuine or not.
 
-This isn’t going to be a lengthy blog post on advertising being bad, far from it. In fact, many of the VPN providers we recommend on _Privacy Guides_ engage in responsible advertising across various platforms. The key is transparency: Their advertisements should _look like advertisements_, and nothing else.
+This isn’t going to be a lengthy blog post on advertising being bad, far from it. In fact, many of the VPN providers we recommend on *Privacy Guides* engage in responsible advertising across various platforms. The key is transparency: Their advertisements should *look like advertisements*, and nothing else.
 
 I’m really looking to take the time here and identify “the bad” sites and resources that use these techniques to profit off a community just looking for reliable answers. Lots of sites like these will claim they’re acting in your best interest, but they’re just here to make money.
 
@@ -50,7 +50,7 @@ To their credit, this review site also helpfully included an advertising disclos
 - Trust.Zone
 - Private Internet Access
 
-_Hmm_. Look familiar? Of the 73 providers this site had reviewed at the time of writing this article, **all eight** of the VPN providers paying this review site happened to make their top 10 recommendations. In fact, you’d have to scroll down to #6 before you found a provider that wouldn’t pay them, practically buried.
+*Hmm*. Look familiar? Of the 73 providers this site had reviewed at the time of writing this article, **all eight** of the VPN providers paying this review site happened to make their top 10 recommendations. In fact, you’d have to scroll down to #6 before you found a provider that wouldn’t pay them, practically buried.
 
 Furthermore, their list includes NordVPN, a company [notable for not disclosing security breaches](https://techcrunch.com/2019/10/21/nordvpn-confirms-it-was-hacked/) in a timely fashion, and ExpressVPN, a provider [notable for using weak 1024-bit encryption keys](https://www.goldenfrog.com/blog/some-providers-use-weak-1024-bit-keys-vyprvpn-explains-why-its-strong-keys-matter) to protect their users. By any objective standard, these providers do not deserve to be included in a top 10 recommendations list for securing anybody’s information. This review site in particular claims to have set criteria for their recommendations, but this just demonstrates that any criteria can be adjusted to fit any goal you may have.
 
@@ -58,7 +58,7 @@ If these sites truly wanted to be helpful, they would consolidate all the releva
 
 But that isn’t to say they should just throw all the providers in a big table and call it a day. Almost worse than the ranking scheme above is when sites provide out of context lists of providers, often just with pricing and a link. Sometimes they will link you to a full review (more on that in a bit), but for the most part these sites just expect you to follow their recommendations blindly.
 
-![](/assets/images/the-trouble-with-vpn-and-privacy-review-sites/image1.png "Affiliate links and discounts galore! This is a different site than before, but look at the familiar faces we’re seeing…")
+![Image of a review site with mostly affiliated recommendations](/assets/images/the-trouble-with-vpn-and-privacy-review-sites/image1.png "Affiliate links and discounts galore! This is a different site than before, but look at the familiar faces we’re seeing…")
 
 These read like advertisements, because they usually are. Once again we see the usual suspects — NordVPN, ExpressVPN… — paraded as the gold standard in the VPN space, not out of any inherent value, but based on the value of their affiliate programs. To further this point, let’s take a look at how much each of the five providers above will pay you for a referral (on a one-month plan).
 
@@ -67,13 +67,13 @@ These read like advertisements, because they usually are. Once again we see the
 3. VPNArea: $4.95 for first month
 4. VPN.ac: $2.90 for first month
 
-_Unfortunately, Perfect Privacy would not share their commission rates publicly, but if anyone has any information on that I’d be happy to receive it. What I will say is that based on the information above, I would not be surprised if it fell right between ExpressVPN and NordVPN’s rates. Their one-month plan costs $12.99, so assuming a 100% match on the first month (the standard from NordVPN and ExpressVPN) that would add up quite nicely._
+*Unfortunately, Perfect Privacy would not share their commission rates publicly, but if anyone has any information on that I’d be happy to receive it. What I will say is that based on the information above, I would not be surprised if it fell right between ExpressVPN and NordVPN’s rates. Their one-month plan costs $12.99, so assuming a 100% match on the first month (the standard from NordVPN and ExpressVPN) that would add up quite nicely.*
 
-Once again, we see a lineup of providers ordered in a way that _conveniently_ pays the most to the website owner. And therein lies the issue with affiliate programs. Once you begin receiving financial compensation _on a per-signup basis_, you are now motivated to push the most users to the sites that pay more on a monthly basis, rather than the sites that will actually help the user.
+Once again, we see a lineup of providers ordered in a way that *conveniently* pays the most to the website owner. And therein lies the issue with affiliate programs. Once you begin receiving financial compensation *on a per-signup basis*, you are now motivated to push the most users to the sites that pay more on a monthly basis, rather than the sites that will actually help the user.
 
 Occasionally, these recommendations are coupled with a “review” that is supposedly independent and unbiased, but in reality are simply more marketing tools to persuade you towards their opinions. In most cases, these reviewers will simply copy the VPN provider’s own press releases and even media, presenting their advertising as fact to their readers. These reviews are always hidden away as well, with main navigation links directing users towards the more affiliate-link-laden lists and tables that they’d much rather you browse. The true value of these review articles is the [Search Engine Optimization (SEO) advantage they bring](https://www.pcmag.com/news/367640/how-a-vpn-review-site-dominated-google-search-with-a-scam) in the rankings on Google, and not much more. More traffic = More clicks, at the expense of good, independent content and integrity.
 
-_Originally, this article contained a section about how ‘ThatOnePrivacySite’ was the last bastion of a hope in the VPN review world. However, that has since sold out to ‘Safety Detectives’, a site guilty of using all the affiliate tricks mentioned above. Goes to show, eh?_
+*Originally, this article contained a section about how ‘ThatOnePrivacySite’ was the last bastion of a hope in the VPN review world. However, that has since sold out to ‘Safety Detectives’, a site guilty of using all the affiliate tricks mentioned above. Goes to show, eh?*
 
 At [Privacy Guides](https://privacyguides.org/), we’ve developed a set list of criteria, and we make that abundantly clear when you read our list of [recommended VPN providers](https://privacyguides.org/vpn/). We also refrain from using affiliate links. As we’ve discussed, they are fundamentally flawed ways to market a service, and using them would break the trust our community has in our recommendations.
 
@@ -85,8 +85,8 @@ Ultimately, as a matter of policy our sponsors have no say over our recommendati
 
 We have a lot of points we want to get across. The current landscape of privacy reviewers and “experts” weighing in on topics regarding the very companies that pay for their reviews is morally reprehensible, and just another way for big tech companies to collect all of our data more easily.
 
-Review sites should make it abundantly clear when their reviews are paid for by the VPN companies in any fashion, whether that be via affiliate programs or good old-fashioned sponsorships. This can’t be via a hidden-away disclosure in the footer or not published at all, but _clear_ and _close in proximity_ to the claims published on their site. **Customers are not expecting or seeking out these disclosures** when they visit review sites, and can’t be expected to immediately discern whether you’re speaking from a place of unbiased fact, or from a place with the greatest financial incentive. Better yet, they should reconsider their entire business model. Our site is based solely on a community donation model that still keeps us sustained. It’s the more difficult way to build a site to be sure, actually working to gain the trust of a huge community, but the difference in quality and integrity is remarkable.
+Review sites should make it abundantly clear when their reviews are paid for by the VPN companies in any fashion, whether that be via affiliate programs or good old-fashioned sponsorships. This can’t be via a hidden-away disclosure in the footer or not published at all, but *clear* and *close in proximity* to the claims published on their site. **Customers are not expecting or seeking out these disclosures** when they visit review sites, and can’t be expected to immediately discern whether you’re speaking from a place of unbiased fact, or from a place with the greatest financial incentive. Better yet, they should reconsider their entire business model. Our site is based solely on a community donation model that still keeps us sustained. It’s the more difficult way to build a site to be sure, actually working to gain the trust of a huge community, but the difference in quality and integrity is remarkable.
 
-VPN providers should consider spending less money on paid reviews, and more money on securing and validating their infrastructure. Regular security audits are one fantastic way for companies to demonstrate their dedication to keeping their users secure. We strongly believe VPN services should consider our criteria, especially in regard to the ownership of their organization. Your VPN provider should not be hiding away in Panama controlled by anonymous leadership. While you _as a user_ deserve privacy, transparency should be _required_ of providers if you are expected to trust them. I would not give my money to some anonymous overseas investor, why would I give all of my internet traffic to some anonymous overseas administrator?
+VPN providers should consider spending less money on paid reviews, and more money on securing and validating their infrastructure. Regular security audits are one fantastic way for companies to demonstrate their dedication to keeping their users secure. We strongly believe VPN services should consider our criteria, especially in regard to the ownership of their organization. Your VPN provider should not be hiding away in Panama controlled by anonymous leadership. While you *as a user* deserve privacy, transparency should be *required* of providers if you are expected to trust them. I would not give my money to some anonymous overseas investor, why would I give all of my internet traffic to some anonymous overseas administrator?
 
 Finally, when you’re choosing a VPN provider, do your own research.  [Understand what a VPN actually does for you](https://www.jonaharagon.com/posts/understanding-vpns/).  [Understand what it is a security audit proves](https://www.pcmag.com/article/371839/what-does-a-vpn-security-audit-really-prove), find out who owns and operates the VPN service you want to use, and make sure their policies and technologies reflect your values.  [Ultimately gathering the information yourself](https://www.jonaharagon.com/posts/choosing-a-vpn/) and making an informed decision is the only way to make sure your privacy is being respected.