[6][7] Hotspot Shield is developed and operated by Pango (former AnchorFree Inc.), a company in Redwood City, California with offices in the Boston, and Ukraine.

[7][10] Hotspot Shield was also widely used during the Egyptian protests and revolution in 2011, when the Mubarak regime cracked down heavily on access to social media sites.

[14] In 2013, usage of Hotspot Shield increased in Turkey, in response to the suspected efforts of the Turkish government to censor social media and citizen access to international websites.

[18] Hotspot Shield was one of a dozen circumvention tools evaluated by a Freedom House-funded report based on user experience from China in 2010, which include Ultrasurf, Tor, and Freegate.

"[24] CDT "partnered with researchers at Carnegie Mellon University to analyze the app and the service and found 'undisclosed data sharing practices' with advertising networks.