Who Makes Decisions at AdGuard? Insights from an Email

I saw some people (including myself) worrying about government entities having access to your data when using Adguard VPN/DNS etc. Searching on the web, I could not really find anything other than that it’s a private company. So I wrote them an email asking who owns the company and who makes the decisions etc. This is the answer I got. Make of it what you will…

so? Adguard is operating in Cyprus, Limassol. Fortunately as someone living here I’ve not heard any stories of our goverment nor the EU needing to access any kind of data let alone from Adguard. (Also if you’re really worried you can use Adguard Home, it’s a self hosted solution)

Some people on reddit were worrying about russian government having access. And if there is other shareholders like big venture capitals, they most likely also give your data to third-parties because well… It makes them money. Looking at this email however these seem to be unwarranted for now and I hope it stays that way!

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As I said Adguard operates in Limassol Cyprus, They do not operate in russia nor do they have or are they headquartered in Russia anymore. They’re now considered a Cypriot company, Reddit is worried for nothing (I cant comment for our privacy laws but considering our lack of worry so far so good from here, Can update if anything happens. We’re also bound by EU Laws so we do have to be compliant by GDPR)

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Yeah I also read these stuff online but it seemed to me that the company is a bit too “closed” if that makes sense. Nothing about their internal structure is openly shown. Nobody knows who actually owns the company and who is pulling the strings. Who has majority share? Private company =/= owned by founder & employees. It’s very hard to find information about the company online which always makes my privacy oriented self a bit cautious. I’m using their VPN and DNS products (not Adguard Home) so I really want to be sure that none of my data is shared to third parties in any way possible. But anyways, thank you for linking this thread, it’s helpful to know that I’m not the only one worrying about this.

Evaluate the product and separate it from who is running it.

Their products are open, transparent, work well, and are reputable. I don’t see a reason to not trust it until I am proven wrong.

Had it not been open and we still didn’t know who is running it, then yes - that’s a big red flag.

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Good point.

Good point actually I agree with you. Of course it’s impossible to validate if they actually log your traffic or not (their vpn code on the server is not even open source), but I completely agree with you. That’s also why I’m happily using their products for years. But I would still appreciate a bit more openness about their company structure and who the owners are, you can never be too cautious when dealing with your privacy.

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I mean it is kind of a grey area. Ideally would you trust my open source software for example right?
There’s different need different things. People will try to be transparent but especially if it’s impossible to get independent audits and stuff like that. You’ll just have to take the source code and their transparency for granted until maybe it is revealed at that.
All I can say is, just be vigilant, be up to date whenever positive or negative about the Privacy journey and as to not be ill informed and you can make sure you know you’re doing the right choices.
As a Software developer just trying to take a messaging app into fruition and hopefully develops into my intended purpose (which is RCS + Encrypted messaging). I’ll try my best to be transparent, even make sure that people can run the software from the source code and you’ll be seeing my phases in real time as I publish new code up to every week so that people can eye and improve it and stuff like that even before my Ideal fruition :). (I don’t want it to be self promotion, I just ideally want to make a point about transparency and Open Source and stuff like that, If that helps of course otherwise I can remove it. which is why you’re not getting a link unless asked)

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Can you send me a link? Sounds fun.

Well wow :point_right::point_left:

here
Development is done on the other branches which will be phase1 - phase3

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Looks like an interesting project man.
Even if nobody uses it, you will still learn many things on your way, so good luck and keep doing your thing!

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