Explainer · case A03 · 60 seconds
01 / 08 · Setup
VPN. PRIVACY.
that was the Onavo pitch
02 / 08 · Tension
WHAT THEY HID.
that the VPN was owned by Facebook
03 / 08 · Reveal
ONAVO → PROJECT ATLAS
2013: Facebook buys Onavo · 2016: relaunched as Research
04 / 08 · Mechanism
VPN = all traffic in Facebook's hands
Device
all network traffic
competitive analytics
WhatsApp grows 60%/year → FB buys it for $19B
05 / 08 · Scale
$20 PER MONTH. INCLUDING KIDS.
~187K
devices
ages 13–35
participant ages
$20/mo
paid for surveillance
06 / 08 · Discovery
JANUARY 2019
Josh Constine
TechCrunch
Apple
revokes Enterprise cert
FTC
investigation
earlier: experts had warned in 2018
07 / 08 · Consequence
SHUT DOWN
Apple pulls Onavo from the App Store (2018), Facebook kills Research VPN (2019)
No separate fine — folded into the $5B Cambridge Analytica deal. Project Atlas — buried in the ecosystem.
08 / 08
PROJECT ATLAS
You fell for a free VPN. You paid with yourself. And twenty dollars.
Case A03 in Big Tech Files.