[Privoxy-users] Concern about Privoxy sponsor

Ian Silvester iansilvester at fastmail.fm
Tue Feb 6 19:28:23 UTC 2018


Hi Ian, 

Many thanks for letting us know, and also for linking to us.

I must preface my comments by saying that I don't speak for the Privoxy team as a whole, though I will be in touch with them on the subject. 

So clearly Comparitech are using a somewhat disingenuous angle for their sales pitch. Still and all their comments to you do deserve a response. 

First of all, I acknowledge the irony of a privacy-oriented software project taking advertising sponsorship. There was a need to find funding to allow development to continue, and we saw this as a manageable way to do that. 

We're aware that this sponsor might not be seen in the best light by some, though I think Comparitech's characterisation is a tad harsh. It's not surprising I suppose, given that they've an anti-Privoxy agenda in promoting their own services. Regardless, I honestly don't think that the Privoxy userbase is interested in clicking sponsor links, making the point moot. 

It's also instructive that they've not gone to the effort of identifying whether what they're promoting could actually replace Privoxy for the use case your article describes - clearly it could not!

That a company is inaccurately positioning itself as a competitor and using our sponsor links as a lever to tarnish our image is somewhat troubling though; I'll raise this with the rest of the team to see whether we think we need to take any action. 

Cheers, 

Ian


My PGP public key[http://diem.serveftp.net:8080/IanSilvesterPGPPublicKey.asc]

On Mon, 5 Feb 2018, at 13:22, Ian Chard wrote:
> Hi Privoxy people,
> 
> I recently received an email in these terms from a company called
> Comparitech about the sponsor currently displayed on Privoxy's website.
> I don't make a judgement either way about your sponsor but thought you
> should know that this is happening.  Right now the sponsor is a binary
> options trading website.
> 
> Warm regards
> - Ian
> 
> 
> === BEGIN ===
> 
> Hi Ian,
> 
> I noticed your website sends users to Privoxy here on this page - [a URL
> from my blog]. I wanted to warn you that they're sending their visitors
> to a couple of shady sites, like a binary options review website which
> promotes known investment scams (take a look at the bottom of each page).
> 
> I'm sure you don't want your visitors getting scammed - if you're
> looking for an alternative, may I suggest our list of free VPNs as an
> alternative?
> 
> [a URL on their site]
> 
> In case you’re unaware, a VPN is another type of proxy that achieves the
> same end result as Privoxy. VPNs sacrifice a small amount of speed
> compared to other types of proxies but are more secure, so I think your
> visitors will find this valuable nevertheless.
> 
> Perhaps you'd consider swapping out the Privoxy link and send people to
> us instead?
> 
> === END ===
> 
> -- 
> Ian Chard <ian at chard.org>    http://rainbow.chard.org/
> sedimentation fault -- beach dumped
> _______________________________________________
> Privoxy-users mailing list
> Privoxy-users at lists.privoxy.org
> https://lists.privoxy.org/mailman/listinfo/privoxy-users


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