A couple weeks ago LiquidVPN made the decision to terminate their node in Russia. Shortly after bringing up a server location in Russia they found that their host wasn’t comfortable with their no logging policy. They were told to either block file sharing traffic, turn on logging or find a new datacenter. Enabling any sort of logging where records are saved violates everything LiquidVPN stands for. After doing some addition research they found Russia’s Single Register Law even more troubling and made the decision to pull out their node.
VPN providers add and remove servers all the time. That in itself is common place. Yet this situation was different. LiquidVPN is a relatively new service that is standing by their commitment to not save the records of their members usage. Rather than add nodes into every possible country, LiquidVPN is reevaluating their approach to network growth. With user’s privacy and security the number one goal regardless of location.
LiquidVPN is located in the United States. They make their logging policy clear. They do not maintain user or traffic logs on any of their servers. They list 22 rules that users agree to abide by when using the service. The rules would be hard to enforce without the ability to monitor users. To that point their terms of service states:
We may from time to time enable real time server logs temporarily to troubleshoot performance issues or locate a subscriber abusing the service if the abuse is having a negative impact on other subscribers. These logs do not get saved anywhere.
I can already hear some of you saying wait…they could still be logging my usage and monitoring my activities on the network. They could enable real time server logs at anytime under the policy. That’s true. Following a company’s track record can give you an idea of how committed they are to user privacy. In this case LiquidVPN chose to pull out of Russia rather than risk their users privacy or censorship. That’s a strong sign.
LiquidVPN making the decision to leave Russia doesn’t mean that any company with a server there is in the wrong. In fact 9 out of our top 10 VPN services have servers in Russia. They use a variety of hosts and have their own policies and business practices. In general you want to make sure that you’re comfortable with the information your provider tracks. If their terms aren’t clear then I suggest you take a look elsewhere.
