Recent concerns about a political donation by a Mullvad co-founder have raised questions about the Tor Project's funding relationship with the company. The Tor Project says it is not terminating the relationship, but is setting clear boundaries on how it works with Mullvad. Members of the Tor community have asked the organization to explain how continued collaboration fits with its human rights mission, and have voiced both calls to end the relationship and concerns about what that would mean for Tor's work and the communities it serves.
The decision followed a thorough due diligence process that included discussions with community members, staff and the board, a staff survey, and detailed financial analysis and scenario planning. The Tor Project's mission is to advance human rights and freedoms through privacy and anti-censorship tools. The organization says that while Tor defends free speech, not all speech is equally compatible with its mission, and it strongly opposes rhetoric that threatens other human rights. It also argues that work to protect privacy, free speech and free access to information is severely under-resourced and benefits from collaboration, even when that requires difficult compromises.
The technical collaboration with Mullvad, the Tor Project says, has improved the structure, maintainability and auditability of Tor Browser's codebase, broadened user feedback beyond Tor Browser's core audience, and created a lower-risk environment for testing features. The organization has paused proactive co-branding with Mullvad, and has reviewed how Mullvad Browser is described and endorsed on its owned channels to avoid implied endorsement.
The Tor Project acknowledges that the decision will not satisfy everyone and that it carries a cost to trust for some community members. It says those concerns are shaping its path forward, and that its collaborations must serve, and never obscure, its human rights commitments.
Source: Hacker News · Summarized by HeadlinesBriefing