[2] In return for the opportunity to increase revenue through the Product Red license, up to 50%[clarification needed] of profits gained by each partner is donated to the Global Fund.

Created in 2006, the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria support large-scale prevention, treatment and care programs for these three infectious diseases.

Red is the largest private sector donor to the Global Fund, and has generated over $600 million for HIV programs in Africa as of July 2019.

[45] Jessica Wirgau, a professor at Virginia Tech stated, "Red not only misses the opportunity to promote civic engagement with its audience but also ... gives corporations the power to decide which causes should be supported and to what degree.

"[45] Another critique is that Product Red's expansion into traditional fundraising techniques, such as art auctions, undermines its claim to be a different and more sustainable approach to raising money for AIDS.

[46] Other critics have pointed out that its emphasis on funding treatment for AIDS sufferers meant that large amounts of the money will ultimately end up with pharmaceutical companies "unwilling to distribute their drugs for free".

[48] In the Stanford Social Innovation Review, Mark Rosenman wrote that it was an "example of the corporate world aligning its operations with its central purpose of increasing shareholder profit, except this time it is being cloaked in the patina of philanthropy.