Supposedly 1 in 4 Aussies use a VPN - but are VPN's themselves at risk of 'corrupt conduct'?

They only mask your IP address and attached location to websites you visit, but they don't prevent tracking or profiling. Content is already hidden from outsiders with any standard connection and when it comes to meta data required for the routing, it just shares that with the VPN provider instead of your internet provider. It makes you wonder who gives those companies so much advertising money to route all traffic through a few points, especially when claiming it's safe to do illegal stuff that way.