Who owns McAfee VPN? Company, jurisdiction and related brands

The company and its owners

McAfee VPN is developed by McAfee, LLC, headquartered in San Jose, California. For users in the EEA and the UK, the legal entity is McAfee Ireland Limited. The documents list McAfee, LLC itself as the parent company, while the company in turn is owned by investors: in March 2022, a group of funds led by Advent International and Permira bought out all McAfee shares at $26 each, in a deal valued at more than $14 billion. Since then the company has been private, and its shares are not traded on the stock exchange.

VPN as part of a package

McAfee does not sell a standalone VPN: it is included in the Basic, Essential and Advanced plans of the McAfee+ and Total Protection lines, together with antivirus, identity protection and Scam Detector. For McAfee, the VPN is just one module of the suite, and it cannot be bought without the rest of the package.

Another brand is linked to the VPN. In 2018, McAfee acquired the Canadian service TunnelBear, and McAfee's claim of an independent audit is backed by a link to the TunnelBear blog. For the terms and our own assessment of TunnelBear, see the TunnelBear listing.

US jurisdiction

The US is part of the 5 Eyes alliance, so McAfee VPN earns no points for jurisdiction in our privacy assessment. According to its privacy policy, the company does not collect the connecting IP address and does not track online activity, but it does receive an email address and some app telemetry. McAfee does not say whether it publishes transparency reports or maintains a warrant canary. Other services under the same law are collected in the list of US-based VPNs.

Which company holds the contract in the EU?

McAfee Ireland Limited, the Irish division of McAfee.