Does a VPN stop my ISP from storing data?

Two years ago, on April 3, 2017, President Donald Trump went ahead to sign a law that expertly rolled back Obama-era strict regulations placed on Internet Service Providers (ISPs) regarding how they collect and share people’s data.

Under such rollbacks, ISPs such as AT&T, Verizon, and Comcast can freely gather and sell client metadata, such as:

• The sites visited by customers
• Their location
• The apps they use

While it remains a grey area on precisely what Internet Service Providers (ISPs) do with customer data, there are claims that a good number of them profit from such data. Advertisers and third-party marketers pay billions of dollars to ISPs who then provide them with customer’s browsing history. This history/information is then used by marketers and advertisers who send specific adverts to a particular demographic.

Much worse, these Internet Service Providers (ISPs) are not obliged to let their customers know how their browsing data is handled. If you aren’t aware yet, your ISP can sell your browsing data history without seeking any permission. Still, it’s not even known whether they are also obliged to tell you that they were doing it in the first place.

But all is not lost, though. There is a way of shielding your Internet Service Provider (ISP) from storing your data, which would later be sold to some of the highest bidders in the market. The best way to safeguard your privacy is by resorting to a Virtual Private Network (VPN). So, can a VPN stop my ISP from storing my data? The answer is, YES!

Also, read how to tell if my ISP is throttling bandwidth.

What Your ISP Cannot See

One of the easiest and effective means of bypassing the prying eyes of your ISP is by using a VPN. Even though your ISP will see that you are using a VPN, the good thing is that they can’t realize or instead tell the reason(s) as to why you are using it.

The moment to connect to a Virtual Private Network (VPN) server, you immediately mask the address and location of your internet provider and then reroute the traffic of your network through a tunnel that encrypted. With a Virtual Private Network (VPN), rest assured of browsing without having to worry about your ISP storing your data and any other information that you like to keep it personal.

For example, let’s assume that a user wants to connect to a website through the VPN. His or her ISP can see only the portion of the VPN and that she/he is connecting to a particular website. However, the information that’s sent to and from the respective website through the Virtual Private Network (VPN) is inaccessible and encrypted by your ISP or any other snooper.

Final Remarks

Lately, a majority of ISPs realize huge revenues by collecting and selling customer’s data, regardless of whether such data is personal and confidential or not. However, there are effective ways of shielding your ISP from collecting and selling your data. While there are plenty of effective ways to resort to, using a VPN while browsing is one of the most efficient and effective ways to do so.