Your router is the one device every other device in your home talks to. It sees every site your phone, laptop, TV, and smart speaker try to reach. So a study out this month from Cybernews asked a simple question: do the companies that make routers tell you what they do with that? Mostly, no.
What they found
Cybernews scored the privacy policies of 25 US router brands in August 2026, rating each on how clearly it discloses what it collects. A few numbers stand out:
None of the 25 brands disclose whether they log your DNS requests, the record of every domain your household looks up.
48% (12 of 25) confirm collecting your name, email, phone, and mailing address, usually through the cloud app you set up the router with.
81% won't clearly say whether their hardware inspects your local traffic (deep packet inspection). Only Google Nest and Ubiquiti Cloud explicitly say they don't.
How they ranked
The score measures policy transparency, not proven spying. A higher score can mean a company collects more or just writes a vaguer, catch-all policy. With that caveat:
Clearest (lowest risk): ASUS (34), MSI Radix (38), Google Nest Wifi (39), GL.iNet (40).
Vaguest (highest risk): D-Link (56), Omada/TP-Link (55), Amazon Eero (53), Wyze (52).
The pattern underneath: many brands don't publish a router-specific policy at all. They fold routers into one blanket document that also covers their store, apps, and smart-home cameras, which quietly permits far broader data collection.
What to do
Choose a router you can manage locally, without a required vendor cloud account.
Turn on encrypted DNS (DoH or DoT) so your queries aren't readable in transit.
Add "_nomap" to the end of your Wi-Fi network name to opt out of Google and Apple Wi-Fi location databases.
Turn off remote management, UPnP, and telemetry you don't use. Keep automatic firmware updates on.
Quick tip
Before you buy a router, search for a privacy policy written specifically for its hardware. If the only policy you can find covers the whole company's store and apps, assume the broadest reading applies.
Up next · Wednesday
The free resolver that decides which sites your devices can even reach, run by a nonprofit that doesn't keep your IP.