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freddy-m committed Sep 25, 2022
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## What is PrivacyTools?

PrivacyTools was created in 2015 by Marco Wollank, AKA "BurungHantu", who wanted to make a privacy information resource - helpful tools following the Snowden revelations. Since its creation, PrivacyTools became a flourishing open-source project with many contributors, some eventually given various organizational responsibilities, such as operating online services like Matrix and Mastodon, managing and reviewing changes to the site on GitHub, finding sponsors for the project, writing blog posts and operating social media outreach platforms like Twitter, etc.
PrivacyTools was created in 2015 by Marco Wollank, AKA "BurungHantu", who wanted to make a privacy information resource - helpful tools following the Snowden revelations. The site grew into a flourishing open-source project with many contributors, some eventually given various organizational responsibilities, such as operating online services like Matrix and Mastodon, managing and reviewing changes to the site on GitHub, finding sponsors for the project, writing blog posts and operating social media outreach platforms like Twitter, etc.

Beginning in 2019, BurungHantu grew more and more distant from the active development of the website and communities, and began delaying payments he was responsible for related to the servers we operated. To avoid having our system administrator pay server costs out of their own pocket, we changed the donation methods listed on the site from BurungHantu's personal PayPal and crypto accounts to a new OpenCollective page on [October 31, 2019](https://web.archive.org/web/20210729184557/https://blog.privacytools.io/privacytools-io-joins-the-open-collective-foundation/). This had the added benefits of making our finances completely transparent, a value we strongly believe in, and tax-deductible in the United States, because they were being held by the Open Collective Foundation 501(c)3. This change was unanimously agreed upon by the team and went uncontested.

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Our intention was to continue running these platforms as a public service to our community for at least a few months in order to allow users on those platforms to easily migrate to other accounts. Due to the federated nature of the services we provided, they were tied to specific domain names making it very difficult to migrate (and in some cases impossible).

Unfortunately, because control of the r/privacytoolsIO subreddit was not returned to BurungHantu at his demand (further information below), [those subdomains were [cut off](https://www.reddit.com/r/PrivacyGuides/comments/pymthv/comment/hexwrps/) at the beginning of October, ending any migration possibilities to any users still using those services.
Unfortunately, because control of the r/privacytoolsIO subreddit was not returned to BurungHantu at his demand (further information below), those subdomains were [cut off](https://www.reddit.com/r/PrivacyGuides/comments/pymthv/comment/hexwrps/) at the beginning of October, ending any migration possibilities to any users still using those services.

## PrivacyTools.io Now

As of September 25th 2022 we are seeing BurungHantu's overall plans come to fruition on privacytools.io, and this is the very reason we decided to create this explainer page today. The website he is operating appears to be a heavily SEO optimized version of the site which recommends tools in exchange for financial compensation. Very recently, IVPN and Mullvad, [two VPN providers near-universally recommended by the privacy community](../vpn.md) and notably against affiliate programs were removed from PrivacyTools.io. In their place? NordVPN, Surfshark, ExpressVPN, and hide.me; Giant VPN corporations with untrustworthy platforms and business practices, notorious for their aggressive marketing and affiliate programs.
As of September 25th 2022 we are seeing BurungHantu's overall plans come to fruition on privacytools.io, and this is the very reason we decided to create this explainer page today. The website he is operating appears to be a heavily SEO optimized version of the site which recommends tools in exchange for financial compensation. Very recently, IVPN and Mullvad, two VPN providers near-universally [recommended](../vpn.md) by the privacy community and notably against affiliate programs were removed from PrivacyTools.io. In their place? NordVPN, Surfshark, ExpressVPN, and hide.me; Giant VPN corporations with untrustworthy platforms and business practices, notorious for their aggressive marketing and affiliate programs.

==**PrivacyTools has become exactly the type of site we [warned against](https://web.archive.org/web/20210729205249/https://blog.privacytools.io/the-trouble-with-vpn-and-privacy-reviews/) on the PrivacyTools blog in 2019.**== We've tried to keep our distance from PrivacyTools.io since the transition, but their continued harassment towards our project and now their absurd abuse of the credibility their brand gained over 6 years of open source contributions is extremely troubling to us. Those of us actually fighting for privacy are not fighting against each other, and are not getting our advice from the highest bidder.

## r/privacytoolsIO Now

After the launch of [r/PrivacyGuides](https://www.reddit.com/r/privacyguides), it was impractical for u/trai_dep to continue moderating both subreddits, and with the community on-board with the transition, [r/privacytoolsIO was made a restricted sub in a post on November 1st, 2021](https://www.reddit.com/r/privacytoolsIO/comments/qk7qrj/a_new_era_why_rptio_is_now_a_restricted_sub/):
After the launch of [r/PrivacyGuides](https://www.reddit.com/r/privacyguides), it was impractical for u/trai_dep to continue moderating both subreddits, and with the community on-board with the transition, r/privacytoolsIO was [made](https://www.reddit.com/r/privacytoolsIO/comments/qk7qrj/a_new_era_why_rptio_is_now_a_restricted_sub/) a restricted sub in a post on November 1st, 2021:

> [...] The growth of this Sub was the result of great effort, across several years, by the PrivacyGuides.org team. And by every one of you.
>
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