You may have heard earlier this month that Logmein has purchased the password management tool LastPass. The announcement itself contained some very important information about how this tool might evolve, especially if you look at what they aren’t saying. This is most certainly bad news for Lastpass users.

First, a little history. Logmein is well known for offering a free product (presumably to gain user interest), and pulling it back leaving those users in a position to either leave or pay. If you’re a user of any Logmein product that includes a free tier, you should not standardize its use, nor should you continue to use it.

Lastpass, to their benefit, responded to this immediately in the announcement. They say:

“First of all, we (LogMeIn/LastPass) have no plans to change our existing business model.”

This is clearly a strong statement, but ultimately hollow, and likely misguided, since they’ll eventually answer to the executives of Logmein. There are also several ways they can keep a similar business model, but start squeezing features out of the free tier and making it unusable. As a repeat offender, Logmein can’t be trusted.

LogMeIn also offered a press release describing the deal. A quote by CEO Michael Simon was especially telling:

“We believe this transaction instantly gives us a market leading position in password management, while also providing a highly favorable foundation for delivering the next generation of identity and access management solutions to individuals, teams and companies.”

With this transaction, they’re buying into the identity management business, and while wrapping this into the “Logmein way of business”, does anyone really think they’ll stop to consider the needs of free Lastpass users? Very unlikely.

If you are a Lastpass user – especially on the free tier – I would urge you to immediately look for alternatives. You should consider a more secure localized tool like Keepass.