We use affiliate marketing to make the funds needed to run this website. But our commitment to independence, verifiable sourcing, and editorial integrity forms the foundation of our cybersecurity and dark web reporting.
Are you uncertain if you can trust the online reviews of different types of digital security software, service, or platform when each reviewer is compensated for their opinions? The answer is yes, you can; however, we do not expect you to take our word for it. Therefore, on this page, we will explain how TorWire.com operates as well as why many people consider affiliate programs as indicative of a lack of objectivity.
There has been a great deal of attention recently regarding the validity of online reviews for different types of internet security software. This includes VPNs. Many critics have identified two major concerns regarding these types of online reviews that might suggest bias in the creation of these reviews.
First, review and education sites often earn commissions based on Reader Referrals and may therefore have an incentive to write predominantly positive reviews. Second, the review site may be owned by the same parent company as the product being reviewed, creating a potential conflict of interest.
At TorWire, we believe you should be cautious when reading any article regarding internet security software, including one written by TorWire. Therefore, you will not just have to believe our statements; we will demonstrate why you should be interested in what we say about security products.
We are an independent, small business providing evaluations of products without ownership stakes in the products we evaluate. Although we may be part of affiliate programs with some secure emails, messaging apps, and VPNs, these relationships do not dictate our recommendations. We only recommend products that we believe are of the highest quality, and we will inform you if a product is inadequate. Our goal is to help you make educated choices about which products are best for your individual situation.
For more information regarding how TorWire.com works and what to expect from TorWire’s VPN evaluation and security information, you can read below.
The Operation of TorWire’s Evaluation of Websites and Services
Typical methods of revenue generation by independent websites are as follows: (considering methods other than selling to a larger parent corporation):
The site can sell items directly. It may have its own store selling brand-name products, or it may function more as an online outlet selling product lines of other businesses. The site can offer ad space for sale to network advertisers like Google AdSense.
The site can join several affiliate programs and earn a commission from visitors who subscribe to recommended services.
Our website aims to provide you with detailed product evaluations or service explanations, not product sales, and to that end, we do not display ads or pop-ups all over the place as many other VPN and other cybersecurity products review sites do. This is because our goal is to diminish the intrusive advertisements of modern advertising, which almost always involve collecting personal information, the same type of data we are trying to prevent you from being exposed to.
How do we keep our website alive? Through affiliate relationships with manufacturers, which are the means by which we support our website.
Types of Affiliate Partnerships
With the rise of E-Commerce, traditionally known as Amazon’s foray into the affiliate space, affiliate marketing has become a more common marketing technique found whenever products are bought or sold online.
An affiliate partnership consists of an individual or entity that manufactures a product and an individual or entity that creates a product review or product recommendation. Affiliates usually work under a commission structure.
Here is a breakdown of how affiliate partnerships work:
A product review or product recommendation is created and published on a particular website.
In order to identify where the customer came from, the reviewer creates a unique affiliate tag that is attached to the links in the review or the recommendation on the website.
When a customer makes a purchase/subscribes to a product from a review site, the review site receives a commission from the product creator.
Affiliate marketing provides both reviewers and manufacturers with a win-win scenario; reviewers earn money while avoiding excessive advertising clutter, and manufacturers are exposed to potential new customers without incurring significant upfront marketing expenses.
So, what about the consumer? This is where it gets complicated. First and foremost, there is a major concern: if someone gets paid to write a review and someone buys a product based on that review, then isn’t there a clear incentive for that person to write glowing reviews, even if they shouldn’t?
In fact, yes, there are many services that work with reviewers to develop guarantees in exchange for additional commission payouts, including guarantees about ranking positions and how often they will be featured.
However, this does not mean every affiliate review site is exploiting its writers for commission. Some review sites, such as TorWire, care far more about their reputation and integrity than they do about earning additional income.
At TorWire, we do not only accentuate the positives of a service; we highlight both the positive and the negative aspects of that service so that the consumer understands all the pros and cons before making a purchase. Therefore, we will never recommend a service that we do not think lives up to the standards we have set for ourselves, regardless of how much commission we could potentially earn. Additionally, on every page with affiliate links, we clearly state our commission structure in a transparent disclaimer to our readers.
In the subsequent section of this article, we will discuss why Affiliate Marketing Is Not Always Bad for Consumers.
3 “Why” Affiliate Marketing Is Not Always Bad
1. Affiliate Marketing Arrangements Aren’t Secret
Many blogs contain disclaimers at the beginning of their posts that state, “We may earn a commission if you purchase any products via our links”.
Disclaimers have two purposes. The first is to allow companies/blogs to comply with regulations in their country (most have a regulatory requirement on the disclosure of both ads and affiliate relationships). Second, it is a demonstration of integrity by maintaining trust/value in the eyes of their audience; if people do not trust them, they will lose readers and be less likely to click on their links.
On the other hand, there are some affiliate marketers who may try and conceal their participation in an affiliate program. If you are unsure whether a review contains an affiliate program or not, here is a simple way to tell: hover over the hyperlink to the product with your mouse cursor. An affiliate link will always have an additional identifier within the URL to denote it is an affiliate link/affiliate program; look for either “tag=”, “aff=”, etc., to track commissions back to the affiliate.
Try deleting that tag and everything after it from the URL. If the link still works, you’re looking at an affiliate program. And if the article didn’t mention this upfront with a disclaimer, you should question everything it says.
That’s one of the best aspects of affiliate marketing: it has to operate in plain sight. When you’re watching TV, reading a magazine, or getting advice from a friend, you have no way of knowing what hidden agendas might be at play. Affiliate marketing, by contrast, is nearly impossible to hide completely.
2. Sites Can Work With Multiple Affiliates
Affiliate marketing isn’t an exclusive arrangement. In most cases, when a website earns money through affiliate programs, it partners with multiple companies. This structure offers significant advantages for review sites.
When everyone is paying for coverage, effectively, nobody is calling the shots. The more affiliate programs a review site participates in, the less likely it is to favor any single company. This is especially true in the VPN industry, where roughly 25 of the top providers offer affiliate programs.
In fact, when a site earns commissions from every service it reviews, the reviewer actually has a strong incentive to recommend products they genuinely believe in—products that readers will actually want to use and stick with. It’s much easier to promote quality services than to dress up something mediocre and hope people don’t notice.
3. The Affiliate Relationship is Entirely Voluntary
Affiliate marketing partnerships are voluntary agreements. They’re not acquisitions, mergers, or ownership arrangements.
Business terminology can be deliberately confusing. Some people hear that a website is “affiliated” with a VPN (for example) and assume that means the VPN company or its parent organization has acquired the website.
Making matters worse, many cybersecurity review sites have actually been bought out by the companies that own the products they’re supposed to be objectively reviewing. This is a genuine problem in the industry, and we’re not trying to minimize its seriousness.
There’s been a concerning trend of consolidation among VPN companies, with large corporations acquiring multiple VPN providers at once. What gets less attention is that these same parent companies are also buying up review sites.
It’s always wise to investigate who owns your information sources, whether online or offline. But there’s a massive difference between an affiliate marketing partnership and a complete acquisition.
An affiliate relationship is voluntary and mutually beneficial. It’s far more like a vendor working with a client than an employee answering to a boss. The product manufacturer has no authority to dictate what the review site publishes.
How TorWire Works With Affiliates
Our mission at TorWire is straightforward: provide a central resource for privacy information that’s easy to read, professionally edited, and completely free from annoying advertisements. We want to equip you with current, actionable information you can use to protect your privacy and maintain your anonymity online.
We’re actually happy that readers are becoming more skeptical about online information. Everyone in this business needs to make money somehow, but not all revenue models are created equal. We firmly believe that affiliate marketing is the best way for us to generate income while still genuinely working in your interest.
Our reasoning is pretty simple. Without readers, we don’t make a penny. Trust takes years to build and seconds to destroy. The only way to maintain a stable, growing readership that makes affiliate partnerships viable is to provide honest, helpful recommendations. There’s no shortcut or replacement for that.
Each time we’re deciding whether to suggest a service on TorWire, our evaluation is based on one question: will this actually aid our readers? Whether we’re thinking generously or selfishly, that’s always the right approach.
Conclusion: TorWire and Information You Can Trust
Our goal at TorWire is to earn your trust through our actions, not just our words. We don’t expect you to simply believe us when we say affiliate marketing doesn’t compromise our editorial decisions. We’d much rather prove it to you.
Nearly every product we recommend offers some type of free trial or money-back guarantee. If something catches your interest, test it out without spending a dime upfront. Let your real-world experience be the final judge. That’s the best way to verify whether our recommendations actually hold up—and we’re confident they will.