Google Steps into the VPN Market — Starting with Android
With the size and dominance technology companies like Apple and Google have, it can be a surprise when there isn’t a service they offer, or, at least, one that isn’t closer to being well known. The VPN industry is a thirty-billion-dollar industry, but Google, Apple, nor Facebook have a mainstream product available. That changes with Google announcing an Android-based VPN.
But, considering the fact that VPNs are nothing new, and plenty of ‘mainstream’ internet users are currently deploying them for professional and personal use, why has Google chosen to advance on this tech now? Read more below.
Changing Priorities
The issue of online security for the average internet user is growing more profound every year. The world is continuing to foster an ever more versatile approach to internet use, with public Wi-Fi spaces continuing to open up digital spaces and make public usage easier than ever before.
Google’s decision also coincides with the broadening scope of the gaming industry. Cloud gaming services are increasing the industry’s sway over the hardware and software that goes into creating our phones. We will be using them in public spaces more than ever before, and need to ensure that our connections are safe.
This is in line with the ongoing changes within the gaming industry. Consumer trends demand better features in support of safe and efficient gaming, and this has placed the onus on the developers to ensure that they are keeping up with the player’s priorities. In response to widespread fears over security, for instance, the online casino industry needed to ensure that the steps in using free spin bonuses were able to strike the perfect balance between efficiency and safety — all while appearing attractive enough to draw in players.
Similarly, large scale developer Zynga, for instance, experienced a significant (and highly public) breach that put millions of users at risk. Their efforts were out of a necessity simply to continue to compete against other developers whose track records were more appealing to players.
For Subscribers
Google’s VPN is nestled into a subscription for their 2TB cloud storage. This isn’t exactly committing to a mainstream rollout of a Google VPN yet. Their cloud storage service has 100GB, 200GB, and 2TB tiers.
The 2TB is the premium one which offers 10% back on Google store rewards, Pro sessions (which means users can schedule a meeting with Google experts to learn more about one of their services, features, or products), gold status on Google play points (which automatically promotes users to the third tear of the Google play points system, meaning users can earn more points to spend in the store), as well as the VPN, for seven dollars a month more than the 200GB. These perks are also available in the higher tiers for higher prices. If someone is sitting in a Starbucks, using the free Wi-Fi to send work emails or to play Call of Duty: Mobile, they can rest assured the VPN will protect them.
Google has had a VPN-enabled system for a while now: Google Fi. This is their carrier service. How it works is that a user’s phone, in the United States and if it’s designed for Fi, will be able to connect to T-Mobile, Sprint, and U.S. Cellular towers, switching between them for whichever offers the best signal. Additionally, the device will constantly be looking for available Wi-Fi. It has a database of reliable networks which it will prefer, but it will connect whether the Wi-Fi is known or not. Enter the VPN. When connecting to Wi-Fi, it will automatically run it through Google’s VPN, ensuring their safety.
Mainstream release?
The Google cloud-storage VPN must be enabled. It isn’t like the Google Fi VPN which is automatically running when it connects to Wi-Fi. There is a separation. Everything is ready for a wider release.
Google are treating the cloud-storage VPN as part of the process of rolling out into the more mainstream market. Subscribers are guinea pigs. Or, as the market is quite competitive at the moment – even if it’s lucrative – Google might be keeping it simple and exclusive, using VPNs as an added incentive to use their cloud storage services.
Google do, however, have a business security option but isn’t a VPN – though it is something similar.
Business Security
In the 1990s, the original VPN technology wasn’t developed with wider use in mind. It was for businesses. They wanted their different offices spread over countries or continents to be able to access their company’s data and share files securely. As such, it was imperative to secure the connection between various terminals, as opposed to the terminals (which is what anti-virus attempts to achieve).
Google has developed this business-use VPN technology further, without the need for a VPN itself. It’s called BeyondCorp Remote Access. It offers exactly the same service as a VPN, in that employees from untrusted networks can access their company’s sensitive data securely. Sunil Potti and Sampath Srinvias wrote in a blog post how VPNs, for businesses and organizations, might increase risk because it increases their network perimeter and assumes everyone with it can be trusted. However, their new system enables policies to be set and, therefore, access can be better managed.
Google will always be – either through in-house innovation or acquisitions – on the forefront of technological development. As for its market interests, they might look at the business, VPN-less, remote access market as something which is better suited to their long-term goals.