Internet users tackle censorship in the Arab world
Due to existing government restrictions implemented through internet service providers to protect the moral, cultural, and religious values of the UAE, internet censorship remains a hard reality in the UAE, and the situation is not expected to make a sudden turnaround anytime soon. These conditions have presented a very real challenge to the expatriate-dominated population of the UAE, as well as much of the rest of the Arab world, preventing them to access online content and services that they would otherwise be able to with ease in their home country.
The software has gained a considerable foothold in the Middle Eastern region specifically because of circumstances that curtail the freedom to access publicly available information.
In return for security and anonymity on the web, AnchorFree provides an ad-supported service to users, utilising a precise, critically targeted advertising platform to deliver value to both its advertisers and its service users. Emarat Business Review spoke with David Gordoyansky, Chief Executive Officer and co-founder of Anchorfree, to tackle high-tech advertising, internet security, and the controversial subject of internet censorship.
Could you give a bit of an overview on Anchorfree’s business model?
AnchorFree combines targeted advertising with consumer security and privacy issues – two very hot topics these days, and often the source of contention. This dichotomy is made possible through the company’s flagship download, Hotspot Shield, the world’s first free consumer VPN.
The reason Hotspot Shield is free is because it adopts an ad-supported model. AnchorFree is unique in its ability to meld targeted and contextual relevance with privacy in a way that is consistent with industry regulations, making it particularly unique in being the only online ad platform that respects stringent user-centric privacy, an issue which is highly important of late given the numerous problems with ISPs and ad tracking (NebuAd, Phorm, and even Google getting caught up in the mix).
Most advertisers and websites typically try and gather as much personally identifiable information as possible, including each user’s IP address, in their attempts to serve targeted ads. However, AnchorFree’s approach protects user identity, encrypts all user data, and makes the web a safer place for all users.
AnchorFree therefore offers a very effective means for advertisers and brands to reach an affluent audience on a worldwide scale, yet does so in a way that is unobtrusive to and even helps the consumer with regard to security and privacy.
How did you come up with your business model? Is it the first of its kind?
We wanted to arm everyday people with complete control over their privacy online, while still enabling advertisers to reach and engage with a very desirable audience - an audience that is tech-savvy and wants to opt-in to be private online, while at the same time selecting that it’s okay to receive targeted advertisements because they in no way breach their privacy. This is the first model that creates such a concept: privacy controlled by end-users, in a way that is supported and subsidised by ads.
Why did you think companies would invest in this type of advertising?
Advertisers find the following unique benefits when working with AnchorFree:
a.) Uniquely affluent and tech savvy audience: According to ComScore about three Million of our users make over $100,000 per year and have a higher than normal interest in areas such as computer software/hardware, technology, finance, and automotive.
b.) Captive and Lengthy User-Engagement: On AnchorFree, an advertiser can engage with the user for the entire Internet session, on average that’s 60 minutes of the user attention (as compared to a 10 second radio spot or a brief glimpse at a billboard ad). Advertisers that have a story to tell find that AnchorFree is a great place to do so.
c.) Consumer “Buy-in”: Our users actually opt in to turn Hotspot Shield ON/OFF, thus users actually opt in to see advertising and be private/secure online. This creates higher than normal user engagement rates with advertising.
d.) Relevant Category Targeting: All advertising on Hotspot Shield can be contextually targeted to specific categories or domains. For example, an advertiser can choose to place ads on Forbes and Wall Street Journal on Hotspot Shield for a fraction of the price that it would cost to go to these sites directly - and a lot faster.
Are advertisers getting their money’s worth with your business model? Do enough users click on the interstitial text ads to make advertising feasible?
We’ve seen that because we are able to deliver ads in a stronger, more engaging way with the consumer, the impact and results for each campaign can be quite dramatically better than through a more traditional online ad campaign.
What are your targets for 2009? (Revenues, publisher & advertiser network growth, user base and monthly page views)
During 2008 we’ve had about 500 per cent growth and our monthly impressions have leaped quite quick into the 500 million page views/month range. We anticipate that growth to continue in 2009 as we see a continued surge in Hotspot Shield downloads and usage with more and more consumers being concerned about their online security and privacy.
The user experience seems somehow affected when using Hotspot Shield, resulting in slower broadband speeds and slower computer performance on older machines. What do you say to this? Are you actively taking measures to address these issues?
Yes, we definitely are continually evolving our system to overcome any connection or performance issues, and to date haven’t experienced any large scale issues. We are taking active measures to ensure that Hotspot Shield does not impact broadband speed and to ensure positive user experience.
We are constantly adding servers to our existing infrastructure of servers all over the world. In general, users find that these minor hiccups are a fair trade for the level of security and privacy – as well as access to US sites when abroad – that we provide.
Given that your business works because of the existence of internet censorship in some locations, what is your opinion on the practice of internet censorship?
Our business works because users choose to be private and secure online. Some users certainly want to access content that may not be available due to restrictions such as censorship, others want to securely shop online and use us for security. Other users don’t want websites and search engines to collect their data and use us for privacy. So at the end of the day, if we are helping users to have a better online experience, that is our ultimate goal.
Will your business model be rendered obsolete should situations change and internet censorship be eliminated?
As mentioned above, our business does not depend on Internet censorship, which has really emerged as a tangential use case scenario. Unfortunately, people will need to continue to take action to protect themselves against security and privacy issues for the foreseeable future, so that is and will remain the real driver of our model.
Why would people still want to use Hotspot Shield if they are in locations where they can freely access the internet with no restrictions? What do people need internet privacy and security from?
Unfortunately, there are an endless number of threats out there on the Internet, so people use Hotspot Shield to protect from any form of third party snooping or data collection. This includes securely connecting to public Wi-Fi networks at hotels, airports, and cafes, as offering free and easy internet access in such locations is becoming a norm and is practically expected. Every day, people check their bank account, send work emails, or even do personal shopping online, so it’s important to give them peace of mind in doing so securely while on the go.
Additionally, ISP snooping and data collection has been a big issue of late here in the US and has been the source of much Congressional debate, so Hotspot Shield presents a way for consumers to bypass these issues as well.
Recently, an entity called VPN4Life enticed users with a lifetime VPN service for $50, and it turned out they were just selling the freely downloadable Hotspot Shield software from your company. What is your comment on this issue? Are you taking steps to ensure that this doesn’t happen again?
I guess this shows that we’ve gotten pretty popular. This obviously was a big surprise for us and we immediately took action to ensure it stopped, issuing this a media alert to warn our patrons. We’re glad the situation has been remedied.
