INDEX / DIRECTORY / MULLVAD VPN / POLITICAL

Mullvad VPN POLITICAL

POLITICAL AUDIT UPDATED 2026-09-09
Political Score 1.77 /10 E Mullvad VPN - BDS-1000 157
Political 1.77

Evidence-only forensic audit. Scoring happens downstream - see the main dossier for the composite assessment.

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Corporate Communications & Public Stance

Mullvad describes its purpose as supporting “free communication” and presents VPN and browser services as its products 1.

Its published privacy-focused materials discuss encrypted communications, censorship circumvention, activists in oppressive regimes, human-rights conventions, and resistance to government overreach, but the reviewed materials do not address Israel, Palestine, Gaza, the West Bank, or the wider conflict 2, 3.

No public evidence identified of an official Mullvad statement specifically addressing Israel–Palestine.

Operations in Occupied or Contested Territories

A third-party network-observation record identified IP address 169.150.227.222 as a Mullvad VPN relay in Tel Aviv, Israel, with relay hostname il-tlv-wg-103.relays.mullvad.net and reverse DNS associated with DataPacket/CDN77 4.

This observation supports the existence of a rented VPN relay endpoint in Tel Aviv as of the record’s August 2026 crawl, but it does not establish a government, military, settlement, or public-sector contract 4.

Direct review of Mullvad’s official Israel-filtered server interface on 9 September 2026 identifies three rented DataPacket relays in Tel Aviv; this infrastructure listing does not establish a political endorsement or state partnership 5.

Mullvad’s reseller roster, updated 29 October 2025, lists resellers in Sweden, Germany, Austria, and the Netherlands, along with specified Amazon national storefronts; it does not list an Israel-based reseller, distributor, or settlement-based outlet 6.

The roster is a scoped disclosure and does not establish the absence of other sales channels 6.

The reviewed official product material describes privacy, encrypted traffic, and censorship-circumvention functions, without identifying an Israel/Palestine-specific product, public-sector deployment, or military-use offering 7.

No public evidence identified of Mullvad operations, contracts, resellers, subsidiaries, equipment sales, or service activity in Israeli settlements, East Jerusalem, the West Bank, or the occupied Syrian Golan.

A document-scoped pre-scan found no mention of “Mullvad VPN” in the cited UN Human Rights Council report, the 2025 settlement-business database document, or the related OHCHR database-update announcement 8, 9, 10.

That document-scoped absence does not establish database-wide absence for affiliates or individual principals 8, 9, 10.

No public evidence identified of legal proceedings, regulatory action, organized BDS or boycott campaigns, or a documented company response connected to Israel–Palestine.

Internal Governance, Content & Retail Policies

Mullvad publishes general corporate policies and identifies itself as Sweden-based 11.

The reviewed material does not identify Israel/Palestine-related employee discipline, litigation, union disputes, content moderation, editorial policy, or retail and supply-chain practices 1, 2, 3, 8, 9.

No public evidence identified of internal governance or retail-policy actions connected to Israel–Palestine.

Brand Heritage & State Partnerships

Mullvad dates the launch of its VPN service to March 2009 1.

Mullvad states that founders Fredrik Strömberg and Daniel Berntsson remain actively involved, while a 2026 profile reports that the pair founded Mullvad in 2009 1, 12.

Daniel Berntsson’s personal account says that he and Strömberg started Mullvad in response to Sweden’s FRA surveillance law and engaged in political campaigns against legislation through advertising, lobbying, and debate 13.

This founder account is a first-person personal statement rather than a corporate charter or statutory filing 13.

The reviewed corporate materials characterize Mullvad’s heritage as privacy and free communication and do not describe military origins, defence-sector heritage, Israeli state-security links, state honours, or Israel-related academic or government partnerships 1, 3.

No public evidence identified of sponsorship of Israeli state-backed cultural or public-relations initiatives.

Lobbying, Advocacy, Financing & Logistics

The reviewed sources identify historical advocacy by a founder against Swedish surveillance legislation, but they do not document Israel/Palestine-related corporate lobbying, anti-BDS advocacy, PAC activity, military-welfare financing, settlement funding, or conflict-related asset mobilisation 13, 1, 2.

No public evidence identified of donations, sponsorships, free-service credits, logistics, or other crisis-support measures for the IDF, Israeli government, settlement bodies, or conflict-related NGOs.

No public evidence identified of a US principal-linked foundation or charity entity in the bounded research; no IRS Form 990 or 990-PF grant-schedule review was triggered, and this does not establish that no such entity exists.

Corporate Structure & Primary Mission

Mullvad states that its operating company is Mullvad VPN AB, incorporated in Sweden, with postal address Box 53049, 400 14 Gothenburg, Sweden 1, 2.

Mullvad states that Mullvad VPN AB is a subsidiary of Amagicom AB and that both companies are 100% owned by founders Fredrik Strömberg and Daniel Berntsson, without disclosing each founder’s individual ownership percentage 1, 11.

Mullvad further states that no other company is directly involved in operating the Mullvad VPN service and that neither the companies nor the founders hold ownership or economic stakes in other VPN services 2.

A 2020 corporate post states that Amagicom transferred the Mullvad business to the newly created subsidiary Mullvad VPN AB effective 1 March 2020, while remaining founder-owned and retaining full ownership of the subsidiary 14.

A commercial company-record profile, using group data stated as of December 2023, identifies Amagicom AB as parent of a six-company group that includes Mullvad VPN AB, Tillitis AB, Glasklar Teknik AB, Karlstad Internet Privacy Lab AB, and Eisenia AB 15.

Because this is a commercial registry mirror rather than a certified Swedish registry extract or consolidated annual report, the group’s current composition and the sibling entities’ roles require independent confirmation 15.

A September 2025 Amagicom Group presentation names Mullvad VPN AB, Tillitis AB, Glasklar Teknik AB, and Karlstad Internet Privacy Lab AB, but does not establish that those companies participate in operating the Mullvad VPN service 16.

The reviewed corporate and company-record sources describe a commercial privacy and communications business and disclose no state ownership, golden share, or chartered geopolitical mission 1, 15.

No public evidence identified of an Israeli parent or subsidiary, Israeli office, franchisee, entity-level state partnership, or state ownership interest.

Executive & Leadership Footprint

Mullvad identifies Fredrik Strömberg and Daniel Berntsson as its founders and joint 100% owners of Mullvad VPN AB and Amagicom AB 1, 11.

The commercial company-data record lists Erik Daniel Berntsson as a director of Amagicom AB and Karl Fredrik Strömberg as deputy director, while not listing a chair 15.

An undated Mullvad publication available online by 2025 identifies Jan Jonsson as “CEO, Mullvad VPN,” but the reviewed evidence does not independently establish that the position remains current 3.

No public evidence identified of Israel/Palestine-related personal philanthropy, foundation grants, political donations, investments, board affiliations, op-eds, social-media statements, or attendance at IDF or settlement events by Berntsson, Strömberg, or Jonsson.

The absence finding is limited to the specified targeted searches and does not substitute for Swedish electoral-finance, tax, beneficial-ownership, or certified company-registration records not obtained in the research 1, 3, 15.

Footnotes

  1. https://mullvad.net/en/about ↩ ↩2 ↩3 ↩4 ↩5 ↩6 ↩7 ↩8 ↩9 ↩10 ↩11

  2. https://mullvad.net/en/vpn/trustworthy-vpn ↩ ↩2 ↩3 ↩4 ↩5

  3. https://mullvad.net/pdfs/Total_surveillance.pdf ↩ ↩2 ↩3 ↩4 ↩5

  4. https://www.netify.ai/resources/ips/169.150.227.222 ↩ ↩2

  5. https://mullvad.net/en/servers?country=il ↩

  6. https://mullvad.net/en/help/partnerships-and-resellers ↩ ↩2

  7. https://mullvad.net/en/vpn ↩

  8. https://docs.un.org/en/A/HRC/59/23 ↩ ↩2 ↩3

  9. https://docs.un.org/en/A/HRC/60/19 ↩ ↩2 ↩3

  10. https://www.ohchr.org/en/press-releases/2025/09/un-human-rights-office-updates-database-businesses-involved-israeli ↩ ↩2

  11. https://mullvad.net/en/policies ↩ ↩2 ↩3

  12. https://www.flamman.se/vastvarlden-tittar-avundsjukt-pa-kina/ ↩

  13. https://dberntsson.info/about/ ↩ ↩2 ↩3

  14. https://mullvad.net/no/blog/2020/2/3/doing-corporate-shuffle ↩

  15. https://www.hitta.se/f%C3%B6retagsinformation/amagicom%2Bab/5567839807 ↩ ↩2 ↩3 ↩4 ↩5

  16. https://transparency.dev/pdfs/summit2025/hardware.pdf ↩