As someone living in Europe I'm more concerned with American companies harvesting my data.
this post was submitted on 13 Jun 2025
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Do you trust Xi with your 'private' browsing data? Apple and Google app stores still offer China-based VPNs.
(www.techtransparencyproject.org)
Just curious: Why would you prefer your data to be harvested in China vs. the US?
thats not what they said did they? they said they are more concerned about American companies harvesting their data as they live in Europe and don't have as much affinity to China.
thats not what they said did they?
Is it not? They said they're "more concerned" with American companies harvesting data. Doesn't that mean that, given the choice between the US and China harvesting their data, they'd choose China because it concerns them less? Did I misunderstand it?
they said they are more concerned about American companies harvesting their data as they live in Europe and don’t have as much affinity to China.
Actually, they didn't say this part:
and don’t have as much affinity to China.
They answered my question with a more specific explanation though, and now I understand. In their position, I'd probably choose China too.
Sure yeah I could be wrong. If America scares them more than China it's a major turning point because they are European.
What I initially got from their comment: They are more concerned about actually real threats in their life like Google, Meta, or Apple which are American and are probably what they are using at work and outside of work given they live in Europe. They are less concerned about china because they don't use chinese phones daily or hangout in weChat (I hope).
Where I can of course be wrong about this: They are actually using Tiktok and don't care about the possible spying. They could be using chinese tech and simply not know. main concern is if they are on some tech stack at work or their ISP has equipment from chinese companies known to phone home.
Because China doesn't have as much influence in Europe as the US does. Besides that, there's a higher chance of US companies sharing data with European governments than Chinese companies doing so.
Ah, thanks for the explanation. That totally makes sense. If forced to choose a foreign entity to harvest my data, I'd prefer the one least likely to share my data with my government too.
Don't use sketchy VPN apps, at all. The fact that they're Chinese owned is irrelevant.
Honestly, I wouldn't trust most commercial VPNs these days, especially the ones that are nearly always on 100% discount sales. If they're not making their revenue from customers, they must be making it some other way. And that's a mighty fine data set they're sitting on.
So, trust your VPN service. Makes sense.
About as much as I trust the yanks.
it can’t be worse that what DOGE has done.
Who cares if China has your data?
If you give your data to America, you’re definitely going into the Palantir AI tech so you can get drone striked in your bedroom for not jerking off to your Donald Trump pic for the correct number of strokes.
you can move onto proxies, or even host your own, but thats going to cost money.(yea thats what the of ACCOUNTS, AND LINK FARMING accts use on reddit these days). VPn is way to compromised and abused already.
Sincerely, what is China going to do with it? Open a Chinese bank account in my name? If any institution in the us accepts account openings from a chinese or vpn ip address then it cant be trustworthy enough to ever affect me.
No.