I heard a number of mainstream VPN services will actually sell your data to third party companies without your consent. I know this is the case for most free ones but I am specially talking about the paid services. Supposedly one of the biggest offenders is/was NordVPN. I have no idea if this is true or not.
What are some ways to be sure this isn't happening to you? Is there any signs you can spot that show this is the case within the VPN companies?
As far as I know the only ones that are paid and have leaked/sold data are those that are in Hong Kong. All other paid VPNs do not sell user data. If they are free or offer a free option then they most likely are and they outline this in the fine print.
@xfininitystar I was going to say the same thing. Rumors of NordVPN's paid service doing this was likely started by another company. They have never did this and even the free version they used to offer would outline what sort of data is being shared.
Only free ones do this. This is why you never want to use free ones. It is so cheap to pay for the service these days you can get them as low as $0.99 a month especially if you get some deals through YouTuber sponsorship.