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Conflict of interest note: Windscribe is commercial open source VPN service provider based in Canada.

ex A ex B
Why is ProtonVPN lying about running price sensitivity testing on their customers?
Their pricing page gives you one of two prices at random. This is A/B testing, but instead they’re saying the price difference is due to remnants of a sale.
Their own code says otherwise.
Price sensitivity testing is when a company quotes different people different prices for the same product to see if sales hold steady at the higher price. Not to be confused with adaptive or dynamic pricing which uses your personal data to adjust prices to you.
People on ProtonVPN’s subreddit noticed they were being quoted different prices for the same thing. ProtonVPN’s General Manager replied that the differences were due to remnants of a recent sale that wasn’t “universally refreshed”.
This was a lie, and we have proof.
PetersonProton📸 of a reddit comment
That proof is their own code sorting every visitor into a price variant. It’s labeled right in the HTML tag:
ab-test:VpnHpAndPricingVpnPlusSensibility300726
Which in plain English is:
VPN Homepage and Pricing for the VPN Plus plan, Sensibility test tagged 30/07/26.
ex C
The price continues to flip-flop as of writing this. Expired sales don’t do this.
Something like a Cloudflare-cached page doesn’t add price sensitivity A/B tests to your HTML code.
Proton, if you want to run A/B tests, at least don’t lie about it to your users.

XP

  • XLE@piefed.socialEnglish
    202·
    1 month ago

    I haven’t found their activism pitch to be credible for a while. One of the more eye-opening incidents was when ProtonMail gave up IP logs of a user and then removed “no logging” claims from their website. And then the next incident. And the next.

      • XLE@piefed.socialEnglish
        21·
        1 month ago

        Every time I see this type of argument, I wonder what is expected from Proton. No one ever answers that

        I have. Over and over again.

        When Proton says “We are a neutral and safe haven for your personal data, committed to defending your freedom”, but never defends anybody’s freedom, they could either

        1. stop lying, or
        2. practice what they preach.
          • XLE@piefed.socialEnglish
            21·
            1 month ago

            Why are you lying about me? In my link I literally addressed you already:

            You know that it’s possible to push back against surveillance without committing crimes.

            And I just said that Proton can stop telling lies themselves. They can change their homepage and stop promoting marketing you disagree with at any time.

              • XLE@piefed.socialEnglish
                21·
                1 month ago

                Do you think that “We are a neutral and safe haven for your personal data, committed to defending your freedom” is fulfilled by a transparency page?

                Edit: after I asked this question, malebedo shut down. There is no further constructive dialogue after this point.