The New York Times reports AnchorFree, the maker of Hotspot Shield, has amassed $295 million in funding, bringing the company’s total funding efforts to $358 million. The Hotspot Shield app, one of the oldest VPN apps available, has been downloaded 650 million times and is often in the top-50 category in the Apple App Store. The company said the funding would be used to expand into related areas, such as security for internet-of-things devices. In 2017, the Center for Democracy and Technology asked the U.S. Federal Trade Commission to investigate the company and its product, "accusing the company of deceptively redirecting users to certain websites and sharing data," the report states. The company has denied the allegations and, in the wake of criticism, simplified its terms of service and began releasing transparency reports.
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