It was pretty much a given that the Copyright Alert System, better known as “Six Strikes,” would increase the use of VPNs or proxies in the U.S. Still, it’s nice to confirm our assumptions, and a report released today does just that.

TorrentFreak reports that interest in VPNs and proxies have increased dramatically over the last month as more people are now searching for ways to protect their BitTorrent transfers from the ever watchful, and quick to judge, eyes of the Internet police.

The interest was judged on a selection of Google Search trends that reveal searches for terms like “BitTorrent Proxy,” “BitTorrent VPN,” and “VPN torrent” have all increased over the last few months. The biggest spike came at the end of February/beginning of March when the CAS went live, and mainstream media started reporting on it.

Of coure, these trends are only indicative of people looking for information. Are the actual VPN providers seeing an increased interest in their products? Speaking to TorrentFreak, BeeVPN says that they have seen an increase in interest and are even starting to incorporate “six strikes” into their marketing campaigns.

Like I said at the start, it was a given that VPNs would see a surge in popularity when the Copyright Alert System went live. What’s going to prove interesting is how the CCI responds to people trying to circumvent the system.