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We are removing the option to create new subscriptions

mullvad.net

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Re: We are removing the option to create new subscriptions

#342

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They have a 30 day refund policy. Their credit card partner stores transaction information for 40 days. https://mullvad.net/en/help/no-logging-data-policy/#payments

So I read through this, and it appears pretty clear that stripe holds all the normal transaction data on your behalf, and they store just the link to the transaction. But they mention removing the stripe charge I'd from their records so I guess that could mean they would have no idea how to respond to disputes, hence lose them all. Maybe that is fine, just a cost of doing business for them. But it is definitely atypi…

I’m curious, too. I want to test it on a throwaway account and card.

One thought is that their offering is so uniform that they could provide the same information in response to every request, regardless of days passed since the transaction. They would only need to mark pre- and post- certain changes to terms and screens, which they could record without keeping identifying information.

They may also be using Stripe’s chargeback insurance, which relieves the need for the merchant to respond at all.

Re: We are removing the option to create new subscriptions

#344
post #249

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not really trying to be pedantic for giggles.. perhaps I just think it's sad that 99% of ISPs are considered your privacy enemy and on top of that I don't consider VPNs a scalable solution to the problem at large so I'm more entertaining the "why is this the de facto solution" question in the "does it scale to society" solution space. It starts to look more like a social problem/solution than a technology problem…

I don't consider my ISP my privacy enemy when it comes to paying my mortgage, or filling out my taxes. I do consider my ISP my enemy when it comes to downloading Linux ISOs, because the IP addresses issued by my ISP can be tied back to a geo location and are known to be the "last leg" address that would be targeted for infringement purposes.

Why is an ISP concerned about Linux ISOs? Or is this a code word for warez?

Re: We are removing the option to create new subscriptions

#345
post #210

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Would a 3rd party audit work? https://mullvad.net/en/blog/2021/1/20/no-pii-or-privacy-leak...

audits are only valid for that one instant in time when it was performed. anything could have changed after the fact.

You could say the same about all auditing. A restaurant could have changed its food hygiene standards since it was audited. But a company with a history of periodic and successful audits is certainly a good trust marker for me.

Re: We are removing the option to create new subscriptions

#346
I wonder if a lower cost service like VPNs could reasonably create an “endowed” account: basically pay enough up front that when invested, the returns on the up front cost are about the same as the monthly cost. If you’d need to make €60/yr, you could probably achieve this with a one-time €1,500 payment. Does it make sense for anyone to pay that much up front? Maybe not. But for people that REALLY want to see the business model succeed and/or are way too wealthy considering their mental laziness, adding an option to pay a totally absurd amount once and then forget about it might be useful, even if that payment is way higher than any normal person would pay.

Re: We are removing the option to create new subscriptions

#348

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Presumably there are details linking together payments coming from Paypal and the account number. And obviously there is a link between account number and forwarded port. So following with that, you'd be able to make the connection between the account number and Paypal account, which is definitely not private nor even pretending to protect your privacy.

Maybe but doesn't all of that apply equally to just about any payment method other than sending them cash anonymously?

I think the idea is that money reaches the company, the company then increments how much time you have left on the account, then deletes records linking payment to the account

Like you show up and give me $5, tell me it’s for account XYZ, I go into my admin console and increment the remaining usage time, but don’t write that you were the one giving me $5

There’s a window of time where the link exists of course! But you can get rid of it.

(I Hope that they are not storing things like an account start date or too many payment records… it could easily be deanonymized through time stamp correlation and the banks/stripe/PayPal have the data)

Re: We are removing the option to create new subscriptions

#349
post #218
post #27

Wow. Hadn't heard of Mullvad before reading this, figured I'd give it a try. That is hands down the BEST onboarding experience for an app (let alone a VPN) I've had in I don't know how long. Took me maybe 2 minutes to go from no account to a working VPN connection. I love that everything is anonymous (down to the account credentials just being a randomly generated token).

Of all their features, I love that they have an Android TV app so I can watch F1TV on my couch. They're worth more than the 5 euros I give them per month.

I tried the Android TV App to watch HBO max though (in a different country vs the subscription's host country) and the HBO app did not even load (not even the splash screen). I had no such problems with some other VPN providers (although to be frank some other VPN providers fail in a different way).
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