The United States has no government filtering of the internet and no federal privacy law to speak of. Those two facts shape why Americans use a VPN: not to reach blocked sites, but to keep their browsing from a provider that is legally allowed to sell it, and to get past the growing patchwork of state-level rules that decide what a connection from a given state is allowed to see.
Since 2017, when Congress repealed the broadband privacy rules, providers may collect and sell customers' browsing records. Since 2023, a growing list of states require adult sites to verify every visitor's age, and the largest adult sites block those states outright rather than collect IDs, so the same address that works in one state fails in the next. State privacy laws, led by California's, give some residents rights and leave others with none.
The country also leads the Five Eyes intelligence alliance, and its surveillance law lets the agencies collect foreign communications in bulk from American companies' networks, a programme renewed by Congress repeatedly.
GhostShield runs four US servers, in Los Angeles, Miami, New York and Palo Alto, for Americans who want a different state's address, for travellers abroad who need a US one, and for the many foreign users who come to the US catalogues: Hulu, Peacock, Paramount+, HBO Max and ESPN+ are US-only or carry their largest libraries at home.
International Privacy Standards
Internet freedom varies significantly by country. Organizations like Freedom House track global internet freedom annually, while the EU's GDPR has set new standards for data protection worldwide. Reporters Without Borders monitors press freedom and digital access restrictions globally.
A VPN helps you maintain consistent privacy protections regardless of which country you're browsing from, ensuring your data stays encrypted and your activity stays private.
The privacy landscape in United States
The state collects at scale under laws written for it: bulk foreign-intelligence collection from American networks, and routine legal process to providers. There is no filtering, and the courts have been protective of online speech.
The commercial threat is larger and closer: providers and data brokers trade browsing and location data lawfully in most states, and the breach record is the longest in the world. Identity theft and account takeover are the common harms, and a VPN addresses only the part that travels over the network.
The age-verification laws of 2023 and after created a new kind of exposure: uploading a government ID to an adult site. The sites' decision to block whole states rather than collect IDs is one reason VPN use jumped in those states.
Top reasons people use a VPN in United States
At home: privacy from a provider that can sell browsing records, a different state's address where state laws block a site, and the full set of US streaming services on a connection the services trust.
Abroad: Americans travelling use the US servers for Hulu, Peacock, Paramount+, HBO Max, ESPN+ and the banks, many of which challenge or block foreign logins. The four cities give a choice of coast for the lowest delay.
On the road: airports, hotels and coffee shops with free Wi-Fi are where most people's connections are exposed, and the tunnel takes the network operator out of the picture.