Ethics & Monetization Policy — How Best VPN Match Scores

Current status

Affiliate programs active Approved partners — see disclosure below

Sitewide affiliateActive flag true for approved partners

Scores sold to providers None

Advertising (display, native, programmatic) None

Scoring weights version v1.0 — locked

Outbound links go to Tracked Visit CTAs for approved partners; all other providers → official homepages

Scores, ranking order, and match-engine weights are unchanged and independent of any commercial relationship. No provider can pay to rank higher or be featured.

The Affiliate Firewall

The risk with affiliate-funded VPN comparison sites is obvious: the incentive to rank paying providers first is structurally stronger than the incentive to rank them accurately. The standard industry response is a disclaimer ("affiliate links do not affect our rankings"). We do not believe disclaimers are sufficient.

Our approach is structural: the scoring weights are defined and locked before any commercial relationship. They cannot be adjusted after the fact to improve a provider's score. The rules below are not aspirational — they are commitments we are making on the record.

Scoring weights are locked at v1.0. The current weights (Privacy 25%, Speed 20%, Security 15%, Streaming 10%, Value 10%, Ethics 10%, Apps 5%, Connections 5%) will not change without a public notice on this page, a new version entry in the table below, and a 30-day notice period. The reason for any weight change must be documented.
Affiliate relationships never influence rankings. Scores are calculated from the criteria in /methodology. A paying provider gets exactly the same treatment under the rubric as one paying nothing. If the rubric produces a ranking that happens to favour a paying provider, that is the rubric working — not commercial influence.
Every affiliate relationship is disclosed per-provider. When we join a program, the affected provider's row in the comparison table will display an "Affiliate" badge. The badge links to this page. There will be no undisclosed affiliate links anywhere on the site.
Paid relationships never change our scores. A payment never changes who appears in the top 3, in "Editor's Pick" cards, or in any featured position. Position is determined solely by score.
No sponsored content that looks like editorial content. If a VPN provider pays for content (sponsored post, review, feature), it will be labelled prominently as "Sponsored" at the top of the page and excluded from the main comparison ranking. Sponsored content will be in a separate section, not in the scored table.
Annual self-audit. Each year we will publish a summary showing: how many providers we have affiliate relationships with, the average score of affiliate providers vs. non-affiliate providers, and whether any scoring changes coincided with commercial relationship changes. If the numbers look bad, we will say so.

Scoring Weight Version Log

Any change to scoring weights or major methodology changes will be logged here. The version number increments on any change that affects how VPNs are scored.

Version	Date	Change	Reason
v1.0	2026-10-18	Initial scoring weights published.	Site launch. Weights defined before any commercial relationships.

How to verify: Provider data lives in data/vpn-data.js and scoring logic in data/scoring.js. Changes to the scoring weights are logged in the version log above. The current methodology version is shown on the methodology page.

The KAPE Ethics Penalty — Explained

KAPE Technologies (formerly Crossrider) owns ExpressVPN, CyberGhost, Private Internet Access, and Zenmate. Crossrider was a company with a documented history of distributing browser-hijacking adware, as reported by security researchers and covered by Malwarebytes, Bleeping Computer, and others.

We apply a −15 points penalty to the Ethics sub-score for KAPE-owned providers. This is the most controversial editorial judgment on this site, so we document it fully:

Why we apply the penalty

A VPN's value proposition rests entirely on trust. Users hand their traffic — potentially including banking sessions, medical searches, and private communications — to a VPN provider. The history of the parent company is a material fact in evaluating that trust. It is not possible to know whether current KAPE-owned providers are operating with integrity, but users deserve to know who owns what they're paying for.

What the penalty does and does not mean

The penalty does not mean KAPE-owned VPNs are unsafe today. ExpressVPN has a recent KPMG audit, RAM-only servers, and a strong technical record. The penalty means: given the ownership history, the trust gap is wider than for a provider with a clean provenance — and that gap has a numerical representation in our Ethics score.

What would change our position

We would reduce or remove the penalty if: KAPE Technologies changed ownership to a party without the Crossrider history; or if KAPE published comprehensive, third-party-verified evidence that all technical and policy decisions for its VPN brands are fully firewalled from KAPE Group leadership; or if an extended track record (5+ years with no incident) rendered the historical concern clearly stale.

Note to KAPE / affected providers: If you believe this analysis is factually incorrect, please send us a source. We will publish a correction with equal prominence if the facts warrant it. We are not trying to damage your business — we are trying to give users accurate information.

What We Will Never Do

These commitments hold regardless of commercial pressure:

Change scoring weights retroactively to benefit a provider we have or are negotiating an affiliate relationship with
Let a payment change a position in ranked lists, featured cards, or "Editor's Pick" designations
Publish sponsored placements without clear, prominent disclosure that they are sponsored
Remove or downgrade a provider from the comparison table in response to commercial pressure
Allow a provider to preview or influence a review or score before publication

If any of this changes, we expect to be held accountable by our readers. This page's version log creates a public record against which future behaviour can be measured.

Concerns & Accountability

If you believe we have violated this policy — or are about to — contact us. We take this seriously. If you are a journalist or researcher investigating VPN comparison sites, we are happy to speak on the record.

Ethics policy maintained by: BoonMind Labs