Updated August 14, 2026
Who owns each VPN we cover
Who owns these VPNs?
NordVPN is owned by Nord Security (Nordsec Ltd), incorporated in Panama. Proton VPN is owned by Proton AG in Switzerland, which is majority-held by the non-profit Proton Foundation. PureVPN is owned by PureSquare (GZ Systems Limited) in the British Virgin Islands. FastestVPN is owned by Fastest Technology Limited in the Cayman Islands.
Ownership is the most durable fact about a VPN. Features change with every release and prices change monthly, but who controls the company and which courts can reach it changes only on acquisition or relocation — and it decides who can be compelled to hand over what.
| VPN | Owned by | Incorporated in | Jurisdiction score |
|---|---|---|---|
| Proton VPN | Proton AG, majority held by the non-profit Proton Foundation source, checked August 13, 2026 | Switzerland Outside the Fourteen Eyes | 9/10 |
| NordVPN | Nord Security (Nordsec Ltd) source, checked August 13, 2026 | Panama Outside the Fourteen Eyes | 9/10 |
| PureVPN | PureSquare (GZ Systems Limited) source, checked August 13, 2026 | British Virgin Islands Outside the Fourteen Eyes Relocated from Hong Kong in 2021. | 6/10 |
| FastestVPN | Fastest Technology Limited source, checked August 13, 2026 | Cayman Islands Outside the Fourteen Eyes | 7/10 |
Why this is worth checking before you subscribe
A VPN inherits the visibility your ISP used to have. Every domain you look up, every destination you connect to, the timing and volume of all of it — that record moves from a company you did not choose to one you did. Ownership answers the question that follows: who actually controls that company, and which government can compel it.
Jurisdiction is the part most people check, and it is worth 15% of our rubric. A provider incorporated inside the Five, Nine or Fourteen Eyes agreements is more exposed to routine legal process from member states. All four providers here sit outside those agreements, which is common in the industry precisely because it is a selling point.
The part fewer people check is who ultimately owns the parent. A VPN can be acquired without any change to the app, the website or the privacy policy, and the incentives of the new owner may be entirely different from those of the founders. The industry has a well-documented history of this: several major consumer VPNs are now owned by holding companies that also operate advertising and data businesses.
Structures that differ meaningfully
Proton VPN is the outlier of the four. Proton AG is majority-held by the Proton Foundation, a Swiss non-profit, which means a straightforward sale to a buyer with different interests would need the foundation’s agreement. That is a structural constraint rather than a promise, and structural constraints are worth more than promises.
NordVPN sits under Nord Security, which also owns Surfshark following their 2022 merger. The two continue to operate as separate services with separate infrastructure, but they share an owner — which matters if you were treating them as two independent options in a comparison.
PureVPN relocated from Hong Kong to the British Virgin Islands in 2021. That improved its jurisdiction position and does not erase what came before it, including the 2017 case in which the company supplied connection logs to the FBI while advertising a no-logs policy. Both facts appear on its review, because a relocation changes the future exposure, not the record.
What ownership does not tell you
A good jurisdiction with no audit is worth less than a mediocre jurisdiction with five. A company can be incorporated somewhere unreachable and still keep logs; a company in a less favourable jurisdiction can keep nothing to hand over. That is why jurisdiction is weighted at 15% rather than as the headline number, and why the audit criterion carries more.
Ownership is a starting filter, not a verdict. Use it to rule things out, then read the audit history, which is where the actual evidence lives.
Questions
- Who owns NordVPN?
- NordVPN is operated by Nord Security, trading as Nordsec Ltd, and incorporated in Panama. Nord Security also owns Surfshark following a 2022 merger, though the two services continue to operate separately. Panama sits outside the Fourteen Eyes intelligence-sharing agreement, which is one input to our jurisdiction score.
- Who owns Proton VPN?
- Proton VPN is operated by Proton AG in Switzerland. Proton AG is majority-owned by the Proton Foundation, a Swiss non-profit — an unusual structure in this industry, because it means the company cannot be sold to a buyer whose interests differ from the stated mission without the foundation agreeing.
- Who owns PureVPN?
- PureVPN is operated by PureSquare, formerly GZ Systems Limited, incorporated in the British Virgin Islands. The company relocated from Hong Kong in 2021. That relocation moved it outside the Fourteen Eyes agreement but does not erase its record, including the 2017 case in which it supplied connection logs to the FBI.
- Who owns FastestVPN?
- FastestVPN is operated by Fastest Technology Limited, incorporated in the Cayman Islands. It is the least documented ownership structure of the four we cover — there is no published transparency report and no warrant canary, so ownership disclosure is essentially the company’s own about page.
- Why does VPN ownership matter?
- Because ownership decides who can be compelled, under whose law, and whose commercial incentives govern the service. A VPN sees everything your ISP used to see. Who ultimately controls that company, and where courts can reach it, is a more durable fact about a VPN than any feature list — and unlike features, it changes only on acquisition or relocation.