Wow I had no idea those fake review sites were such a big money maker. As a technical person I would instantly discard them and look for comments from real users. Word of mouth is also how I ended up with Mullvad.

I thought this kind of thing didn't happen so much with VPNs as their target market is pretty technical and I would expect those people not to fall for 'review' or comparison site scams.

Clearly I was completely wrong. I'm sorry to hear your industry is basically being blackmailed by these scammers (I consider a site pretending to give advice or comparisons but instead offering the highest bidder a total scam)