News The Data Avast Sells About Its Customers Is Shockingly Personal

[Admin]

Avast has long been selling browsing data collected from its users. Now we know how personal that data really is.

The Data Avast Sells About Its Customers Is Shockingly Personal : Read more

 

[Dark Lord of Tech]

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cmYw6vLeIYU

 

[13thmonkey]

I would swear profusely, but i'd have to ban myself... Haven't used avast for a decade though.

 

[NightHawkRMX]

In some cases, a security breach may have a smaller amount of data compromised than things like this.

 

[JamesSneed]

I'm glad I never used their products and now I know that i never will.

 

[Deleted member 14196]

And I bet they all do it

 

[JamesSneed]

And I bet they all do it

I would guess the free virus scanners you are probably right but then nothing is free so it's expected. With the paid subscriptions I would bet it's rare. Symantec for example states they do not sell any personal information.

 

[13thmonkey]

Thinking about it (and having just gone through my 4th GDPR course in 2 years), I think that they are on very dodgy ground, unless you actively agree to the usage of data for named purposes they can't use it, they would have to ask do you agree to us selling your browsing history, I don't think that they can bury it in T&C's. You should be able to ask for a DSAR and request the data that they hold on, anonymisation is not enough if it can be reconstructed, and the penalty is a maximum fine of 4% of turnover. Breaches are normally thought of in terms of data exposure but this also qualifies.

 

[Math Geek]

always remember if it's free, then you are the product!!

but even the paid services also collect and sell the same info. they love to state "we do not collect and sell personal info" but look at what they consider "personal info" if they even bother to define it at all.

they play the word game and say personal info is your name and email. but everything else since it is supposed to be anonymous is fair game. so you pay them and then they still collect and sell your usage data for the extra cash anyway.....

the EU has a good start on laws governing this hidden word play collection but in the end it's still doing very little to stop these games

 

[kenjitamura]

always remember if it's free, then you are the product!!

This statement is false as open source software rarely implements data collection practices with the obvious exception being Chromium as Google has spent a massive amount of time burying tracking code into the source that's difficult to identify and remove.

 

[NightHawkRMX]

open source software rarely implements data collection practices

Maybe not as common, but definitely there are some instances of data collection in open-source software.

 

[Math Geek]

This statement is false as open source software rarely implements data collection practices with the obvious exception being Chromium as Google has spent a massive amount of time burying tracking code into the source that's difficult to identify and remove.

if that's what gets you to sleep at night, then go ahead and believe it. there is much less collection for sure on the open source linux side of the world, but if it's on windows and free, then there is pretty much a guarantee you are the product.

but bury your head in the sand if you wish and pretend it is not true, honestly my day will go the same either way