Ethical IP Sourcing Policy

Why sourcing matters in the proxy industry

Where IPs come from is one of the most consequential ethical questions in our industry. The same IP can be the foundation of a legitimate business operation — or the unwanted byproduct of software running on a consumer device without proper consent.

Different product lines require different sourcing strategies. This policy documents ours honestly for each — including the parts where our visibility is direct, and the parts where we rely on partner accountability.

ISP and datacenter products

Products covered: Static ISP, ISP Rotating, Static Datacenter, Rotating Datacenter.

For these product lines, we hold direct commercial agreements with the ISPs and datacenter operators whose IPs we offer. No intermediaries, no resale chains, no opaque sourcing.

This means:

• We know which ISPs and datacenter operators are behind every IP in these products.
• We know how IPs are allocated and authorized.
• No end-consumer is unknowingly hosting traffic for us — these are commercial IPs from commercial infrastructure.
• We can respond directly and authoritatively when questions about a specific IP arise from network administrators, security teams, or the ISP itself.
• If an ISP raises concerns about how their IPs are being used, we can act quickly because we have a direct line to them.

This is a structural difference from operators who assemble their networks by aggregating IP inventory from intermediaries. For our ISP and datacenter products, we know our partners by name and by contract.

Residential products

Products covered: Rotating Residential.

Residential is a fundamentally different sourcing landscape. Consumer IPs cannot be obtained through the same direct commercial channels as ISP or datacenter IPs — they exist within networks of individual consenting consumers, not commercial infrastructure.

Here’s our honest position:

We don’t operate our own consumer-facing apps to harvest residential IPs. We do not bundle proxy participation into unrelated products. We are not in the SDK business.

We work with established residential sourcing partners. These partners specialize in building consumer networks and have their own relationships with end-users. We select partners with strong reputations in the industry — the same ethical sourcing companies that supply the larger enterprise players.

We hold our sourcing partners accountable to ethical standards through written commitments. We require all our residential sourcing partners to contractually confirm that (a) their networks are fully opt-in and consent-based, (b) end-users provide informed consent to participation, and (c) no botnet-sourced traffic is used anywhere in their networks. We select and continue working with partners on that basis.

We’re honest about the limits of our direct visibility. We do not conduct our own audits of every end-user’s consent flow across every partner. What we can and do commit to: when we become aware of ethical concerns with a partner — through our own review, industry reporting, or customer feedback — we take those concerns seriously and, if warranted, we terminate the relationship.

Residential sourcing partners can change over time. Rather than name specific partners publicly, we maintain flexibility to work with the operators who best meet ethical and technical standards at any given time. If a partner falls short, we can replace them without publicly locking ourselves into arrangements we may need to change.

What we don’t do

We think it’s important to be clear about what we won’t do — as a company or through our partners:

• We won’t operate hidden or covert IP harvesting on consumer devices.
• We won’t bundle proxy participation with unrelated apps or services in a way that obscures the relationship from end-users.
• We won’t work with sourcing partners whose reputation or practices are known to fall below industry ethical norms.
• We won’t oversell “ethical sourcing” as a marketing claim. The residential segment of our industry has real ongoing challenges, and pretending otherwise would be dishonest.
• We won’t claim direct visibility we don’t have. Better to acknowledge the layered nature of residential sourcing than to make guarantees we can’t independently verify.

Our stance on the industry

The proxy industry has improved meaningfully on sourcing transparency over recent years. Trade initiatives like the Ethical Web Data Collection Initiative (EWDCI) have raised the bar for what “ethical” means in residential sourcing. Enterprise proxy providers publish detailed sourcing disclosures.

We support these trends. We publish this policy publicly to make our commitments — and their limits — explicit, and to invite scrutiny from customers, journalists, and industry peers.

Enterprise due diligence

For enterprise customers evaluating us as a supplier, we’re happy to discuss our sourcing approach in more detail as part of your due diligence — including current sourcing partners for residential (under NDA where appropriate) and specifics on ISP and datacenter arrangements.

Contact sales@privateproxy.me to arrange this conversation.

What we don’t disclose publicly

• Specific commercial terms with our ISP or datacenter partners.
• Names of specific residential sourcing partners — these can change, and public naming creates dependencies for both sides that we prefer to avoid.
• Internal review outcomes for sourcing partners — these are treated as confidential.

Contact

• Questions about our sourcing practices: privacy@privateproxy.me
• Enterprise due diligence conversations: sales@privateproxy.me
• Report a specific sourcing concern: abuse@privateproxy.me