Residential proxies, when acting responsibly, offer lots of great value to their customers. And if they're ethically sourced and well-controlled, they can't hurt consumers. But irresponsible residential proxies who don't bother obtaining informed consent, or monitoring/controlling what their customers use them for, are both messing this up for the rest of the industry as well as leaving consumers at risk.
It's time for the careless and irresponsible residential proxies to go away and leave room for the responsible proxies who will treat consumers with respect and keep them safe.
AppEsteem has worked with several of these responsible proxies, as well as the AV ecosystem, to put together a Residential Proxy Responsibilities Whitepaper that details how a responsible residential proxy should act, how AppEsteem plans to determine the irresponsible ones, and the consequences of irresponsibility.
I think you'll find this paper very informative, and once you see the risks for consumers, I'm sure that you'll agree that this industry needs better regulation than it's currently receiving.
So fair warning to the industry that, like it or not, regulation is coming. If you offer residential proxy services, please take this seriously. Read this document. We plan to start testing in August, and we will be enforcing (calling out active Deceptors) once ACR-015 (find it here) goes live on 1 October 2026. Contact me at [email protected] if you have any questions, or if you'd like to get a head start on how you can check if you're acting responsibly.