VPN sales just got more profitable

Today the UK MP’s have passed a controversial law called the IP Act.

The IP Act includes big provisions, the most discussed of which is that service providers will have to keep a record of their customers’ web browsing history and phone calls for 12 months.
From December 31 (the date the current Data Retention and Investigatory Powers Act 2014 expires), if you visit a website, the broadband provider will record its domain.
A long list of agencies will be able to look at this record in addition to the police and intelligence services and “bulk collection” powers mean that users won’t have to be suspected of anything for this to happen.
That’s a red flag to privacy campaigners because they interpret it to mean that innocent citizens will be watched.
If police go a stage further and obtain a warrant from the home secretary (co-authorized by judges in a “double lock” arrangement), they will also be able to conduct “equipment interference” against suspects’ computers, in other words hack them.
That covers the interception of all actual communications including emails, actual phone calls and SMS messages.

source

Well while this is obviously a flagrant violation of privacy it has just become a gold mine for VPN providers which will become more attractive to users in the UK and it’s not because the majority of people would be doing anything illegal while being online, but mainly because the law makes browsing records accessible to a wide range of third parties not only law enforcement.

Those using a reliable VPN provider that’s situated offshore which offers encryption that’s strong enough to prevent eavesdropping will be unaffected by this law, while those that won’t be going for a VPN provider, or at least not a reliable one will probably become lab rats for all sorts of shady marketing practices and scammers.

It’s a sad day for online privacy and it’s not the first attempt to wreck the online stronghold as the EU Parliament (yea! same one that issued the stupid cookie law) is preparing a link tax and a censorship machine.

This obvious violation of privacy rights made me to seriously reconsider the use of Proton Mail.