VPNs have come under serious scrutiny since mid-2011 after one of the leading services on the market played a pivotal role in the arrest and prosecution of a member of hacker group Lulzsec. This kicked off the debate amongst filesharers and privacy groups over whether VPNs offered any real protection to their users at all. As TorrentFreak pointed out, many are no more effective than a regular ISP due to self-imposed data retention policies.