The Apple and Google app stores continue to offer private browsing apps that are surreptitiously owned by Chinese companies, more than six weeks after they were identified in a Tech Transparency Project report. Apple and Google may also be profiting from these apps, which put Americans’ privacy and U.S. national security at risk, TTP found.
The apps are virtual private networks (VPNs), which promise to mask a user’s identity as they browse the internet. But Chinese-owned VPNs raise serious privacy and security concerns for Americans because Chinese companies can be forced to share user data with the Chinese government under the country’s national security laws. VPNs have access to particularly sensitive user data since they see all of a person’s web activity.
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.