VPN usage is surging in countries undergoing coronavirus-related lockdowns, startup Atlas VPN reported in a blog post yesterday (March 16).

Atlas VPN said that in Italy, where most of the population is confined to their homes, traffic increased 112% in the second week of March (March 9-15) over the previous week. In Iran, also hit hard by the coronavirus, traffic jumped 38% in one week. In Spain, the figure was 36%.

In the United States, where a nationwide response to the coronavirus pandemic began just last week, Atlas VPN usage jumped 53%. Even Russia, which does not yet appear to have much of a coronavirus problem, saw a 36% weekly surge.

There are a few "buts" here. Atlas VPN only launched its service in January, which for now is only available on iOS and Android, so its traffic spike is not unexpected.

Atlas VPN does not provide an example sample size, so it is not clear whether the figure is based on 1,000 users worldwide or 1 million users. We also do not have information on whether other VPN providers are seeing similar spikes in Atlas VPN traffic.

Most importantly, Atlas VPN launched a coronavirus-related promotion last week. After such an announcement, usage is expected to skyrocket. (Atlas VPN has stated that users of its premium service will get faster speeds and access to servers optimized for streaming.)

Since a large portion of the population in developed countries is forced to telecommute, VPN usage is expected to increase as millions of people log into their employer's corporate VPN to connect to the corporate network.

However, corporate VPNs are quite different from consumer VPNs such as ExpressVPN and Private Internet Access, which are used for private purposes.

Atlas VPN states that the surge in consumer VPNs may be due to people using VPNs "to overcome geographic limitations and enjoy their favorite [streaming video] content around the world."

"We estimate that VPN usage in the U.S. will increase by more than 150% by the end of the month," said Rachel Welch, chief operating officer of Atlas VPN, in a blog post." If the coronavirus outbreak worsens, overall VPN use should continue to surge."

Now, before you rush out and sign up for Atlas VPN's free service, take a step back and take a deep breath.

We don't know much about Atlas VPN. The new company is registered in Delaware and is a subsidiary of a company called Peakstar Technologies, but the web domain atlasvpn.com is registered in Lithuania.

Also, neither the website nor the Android or iOS app store pages mention how much the premium Atlas VPN service actually costs; the Google Play app page only has a price range of $9.99 to $49.99. It is not listed.

It is also odd that there is no Atlas VPN service for desktop computers yet, although the company has announced that it will be available in summer 2020.

The company may be completely on the up and up, but if we are going to trust it with all of our private Internet traffic, we would like a little more transparency about its location, jurisdiction, and ownership.

Furthermore, we should always be wary of VPN services that offer little or completely free services, especially those in the Google Play app store.

As the old saying goes, if you are not the customer, you may be the product.