I am fully aware of what vpn services to use and not. I am not using Express VPN, I am simply doing research for a master thesis, when I came across these results from Express VPN. If you have any ideas or corrections, please let me know why a VPN provider would need to have access to these permissions.
Screenshot is from Exodus service, which let's you view what exactly perimissions and trackers each app uses. You can check out the results and the tool for yourself here: https://reports.exodus-privacy.eu.org/en/reports/com.expressvpn.vpn/latest/
Thank you very much, we should always strive to back up claims with relevant links and data, no matter if it's common sense or how trivial it might seem.
While the quote and linked paper give a good picture of the VPNs and their controversies, such as ExpressVPN, CyberGhost, and PIA being under ownership of a less-than-trustworthy company which also happens to be specialized in malware and surveillance, I did not find anything that directly supported @spudwart@spudwart.com's claim.
The only controversy (except questionable ownership) I could find in the article was a few paragraphs lower regarding the Andrey Karlov assassination, where ExpressVPN denied the existence of logs but investigators somehow still managed to extract a serial number of a computer(?) after a datacenter raid. Not sure if I got that right, but it would fit the established profile from this comment chain:
It's almost midnight here, so please correct me if I missed something.
Oh, and nice paper, has a good, natural flow and appears to keep technical jargon to a level where anyone should be able to draw well informed conclusions.
Aw man, now PIA is bad too? Crap. I was really enjoying them. ☹
PIA being owned by the same scammy company as ExpressVPN does not necessarily mean that it itself also is bad, but one should keep an open eye on them.
Like I said, I haven't found any evidence that ExpressVPN sells their customer data, even though it might be likely.