Editor's note: The US District Court in Orlando decided to dismiss the case against NordVPN brought by Torguard on June 19
Below is a statement from NordVPN about the dismissal of the lawsuit: "The dismissal was issued on the grounds that TorGuard failed to prove that they fall within the jurisdiction of the court in question – despite the Court allowing them to try to do so twice. NordVPN Since the case was filed in a rush (TorGuard also sued the wrong company in their initial complaint) to tarnish NordVPN's reputation and not as a good-faith effort to seek justice, we expected this would be the initial outcome. However, the US District Court decision was issued “without prejudice,” which means that the case can be brought again if TorGuard is willing to continue its unfounded assaults."
We have reached out to Torguard to get a statement from them. The original article continues below.
Torguard has filed a complaint against rival VPN provider NordVPN in the Middle District of Florida on Friday 24th. The papers filed allege that NordVPN has been guilty of a number of extremely serious malpractices.
These allegations include a successful Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) on Black Friday, wrongfully obtaining and using TorGuard’s confidential and trade secret business information to blackmail the company and coercing a third party into silence.
The accusations hinge on the purported ownership of control that Panama-based NordVPN has over a Canadian web hosting company called c-Seven Media Inc.
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NordVPN issues explanation
We reached out to NordVPN to get their comments regarding the lawsuit. A spokesperson for NordVPN provided us with the following statement which is published verbatim below.
“All accusations are entirely made up. TorGuard (although probably by mistake) even filed a lawsuit against some Canadian web design company which we never heard about. We received information that led us to finding TorGuard server configuration file available on the internet. We then noticed that one of their servers was left completely unprotected and publicly accessible for anyone. It contained private keys, scripts, and a number of other extremely sensitive information, which if misused, could have caused Torguard and their customers some serious harm. We disclosed the vulnerability to them with the best intentions. It is a normal practice and just the right thing to do, but they decided to file a lawsuit for blackmail. We didn't even want to make it public. We are very much looking forward to the following process. Also, now we have no choice but to take countermeasures.“
A blog on the NordVPN website goes into further details regarding Torguard’s accusations. Not surprisingly both parties provide entirely different sides of the story. The only thing that they do agree on is that there has been contact between the two companies but from there, their scenarios diverge.
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