[whartung]

My understanding is that routing through residential IPs is a part of the business of some VPN providers. I don't know how above board they are on this (as in notifying customers that this may happen, however buried in the usage agreement, or even allowing them to opt out).

But, my main point, is that the whole business is "on the up and up" vs some dark botnet.

[kawsper]

Oxylabs sells proxies for scrapers, I suppose you can use the socks-proxy as a VPN, and they claim to use Honeygain.

Honeygain is a platform where people sell their residential internet connection and bandwidth to these companies for money.

For comparison Honeygain pays someone 10 cents per GB, and Oxylabs sells it for $8/GB.

[aussieguy1234]

That takes buying low and selling high to a whole new level

[moduspol]

We need a better market. I'd sell for $7/GB.

[nielsbot]

FTA

> While operators of residential proxies often extol the privacy and freedom of expression benefits of residential proxies, Google Threat Intelligence Group’s (GTIG) research shows that these proxies are overwhelmingly misused by bad actors

[direwolf20]

Google's definition of a "bad actor" is someone who wants to use Google without seeing the ads. Or Kagi. Or an AI other than Gemini.

[mhitza]

Mullvad seems to be one of those VPN providers. [1] Though I very much doubt they would sneakily make end-users devices exit nodes. Though, as a historical side note, let's not forget Skype used to make users computers act as a relay as well during its more decentralized days.

[1] Using the website mentioned by user Rasbora https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46837806

[Bratmon]

> I don't know how above board they are on this

Saying you don't know something in the comments of an article that explains that thing is a bold strategy