Who owns Malwarebytes Privacy VPN? Company, jurisdiction and related brands

The company behind the service

Privacy VPN is made by Malwarebytes Inc., an American company from Santa Clara, California, best known for its antivirus software. There is no separate subsidiary for the VPN: the legal entity and the parent company in the listing are the same. Besides its California address, the company also lists an office in Cork, Ireland. The VPN is sold on its own and in the Malwarebytes Plus bundle together with the Premium Security antivirus and the Browser Guard blocker, while identity theft protection from the same company is offered as a separate product.

Where the network came from

In November 2024, Malwarebytes bought the Swedish AzireVPN, and Privacy VPN was moved onto its infrastructure. That is where the claim that all servers are self-owned comes from. Some documents that a VPN would normally publish itself sit with the Swedish brand: the monthly warrant canary and the annual transparency report are posted on the AzireVPN website. How the second brand of the group is structured is described on the page who owns AzireVPN, and both products with ratings are collected in the section Malwarebytes VPN brands.

US jurisdiction

The service is registered in the US, a 5 Eyes member, and it scores zero points for the alliance on our privacy scale. The privacy policy states outright that the company may disclose data in response to a subpoena, warrant or court order. What ends up in such a response depends on what is stored. The connection IP is not collected, according to the policy. An email is required for an account, and there is no anonymous sign-up. Whether the service stores connection times is not stated. Other services under the same jurisdiction are collected in the roundup of American VPNs.

Are Malwarebytes Privacy VPN and AzireVPN the same service?

No. They share a network, but pricing and sales are handled separately for each.