The CEO of Mullvad is the main financer of the Swedish Örebro party

> I'm a long-time Mullvad customer, and I respect what the company has been doing and the pro-privacy political stance it openly and publicly stands for.

Thank you.

> the possibility that Daniel and I are able to keep our personal opinions separate from the mission of our company

This isn't about opinions. Very large political financing is not a mere opinion. It has a much larger material effect.

I don't think it's possible to separate "mission of our company" from "large scale political financing", for purely structural reasons.

I think the legal and fiduciary concept of Conflict of Interest is relevant here, but perhaps only by analogy. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conflict_of_interest is quite informative.

In some business, political and legal roles, we deem certain structural relations to be a conflict of interest regardless of what people on those roles actually do..

The mere potential for excessive improper influence arising from the structure of their relationships and roles is what creates the deemed conflict.

As the owners of a company making substantial profit like Mullvad, you always had the potential capability to financially influence political outcomes on a scale which most your customers cannot, in ways that may seriously harm some of your customers and to be potentially against the stated mission of your company.

I think the relationship between running a company with an openly advertised public mission, or even an implied mission in the minds of customers, while in another role (wealthy private citizen) being able to make a substantial material action against the same mission, should be recognised as inherently a conflict of interest. But obviously it's one we can't avoid, as long as we allow people to get rich from a mission-driven company.

What we can do, is recognise that if someone actually takes a large material action against the company's mission, then they have gone a step further and demonstrated the conflict of interest.

We generally favour free speech, including political donations. But when the money for very large political financing comes mostly from customers who, by virtue of the advertising and marketing of the company's mission, are led to believe they are supporting the company's mission?

In my view, at that point the customers are being tricked into paying for something while their money is paying for something else which opposes the thing they thought they were funding.

At the least, it should be dealt with in a similar way that conflicts of interest are dealt with when, for example, directing multiple companies: By making sure everyone knows, so other people are able to consent or not on the major conflict issues those other people might have a view on. The analogy for customers is their consent shown by their informed decision to become or remain customers.

In Mullvad's situation, that would mean Mullvad should explain to customers, embedded clearly within it's public marketing of the company missions and values, that one of its current major owners receiving customer funds by way of profit, is the main financier of a political party which sponsors remigration in Sweden. Because that is clearly a thing some customers care about when evaluating whether to pay for Mullvad's services from now on. You know that, I know that, so there's no legitimate excuse for not letting customers who would care know.

Then, as you said, customers will be free to choose.

> Also they are anti EU and NATO. Lot of astroturfing here.

At the same time, that big advertising and crony politicians are fighting to impose digital ID for all internet communications... one of the strongest privacy advocates is being attacked with non-sense.

Expect EFF to be bought or attacked.

The party seems to have some bizarre policies, but on migration can't really blame them considering how badly Sweden has failed to integrate humanitarian migrants. There is so much gang violence, so many people of migrant background marginalized and living on welfare without any hope of a better future.

I will gladly continue buying from Mullvad. There is nothing wrong with forced deportations. Without them anyone can come, claim asylum, and stay indefinitely if their country of origin doesn't want them back. That is simply idiotic waste of tax payer's money, and in case of criminals, also a hazard to public safety. Pretty much every Western European country does forced deportations, especially those of criminals.

> Which is of course why people are publicizing this donation and publicly stating that they will no longer do business with Mullvad because of it.

But you're doing the same thing, making the same threat. You've only escalated it from a conscientious protest to a Mexican stand off.

I'm not icked-out by immigration discussion, but I am concerned by business owners starting down a political path. VPNs are not a very glamorous segment of the industry, and Mullvad had carved out a niche in taking a neutral side and fostering trust through a transparent product. My former boss spoke well of them and visited their sites in-person after hearing the marketing line about their RAM-only VPNs. Their appeal was not in protecting politicized speech, but protecting all speech and defending it as an apolitical technological imperative.

Now more than ever, it's hard for me to believe their brand identity. You're allowed to have political opinions, voice them and vote for them when you're a CEO. But spending your paycheck on inordinate political investments is how you ask for a boycott. It's how I would feel about any political investment that their CEOs make, and its already tarnished the Mullvad brand for me.