If you are a user of Avast or other AVG products, watch out. PCMag and Motherboard publish an investigation where they do not leave very well standing. And it is that, according to these media, the company and its products have collected information from their customers with too high a level of detail. The reason? Then sell them to other companies and make cash.
Avast and the disclosure of its users' data
Apps and services that collect user data and then sell anonymous packages of that information to third parties are nothing new. Basically, it could be said that it is the essence of the Internet for many and the business model that they follow. Of course, on some occasions, limits have been reached that make many already consider to what extent is it normal or not to do this kind of thing.
Now Motherboard y PCMag uncover a major scandal for Avast, a popular free antivirus used by more than 400 million people. The company behind said software has been collecting the data of its users to a level that has been considered excessive. And all with the aggravating circumstance that it is a program that should protect the user from viruses and other threats, including those attacks on their privacy. But it is seen that it has not been like that, quite the opposite.
Avast collects, Jumpshot sells
For months, Jumpshot (AVast subsidiary) has been collecting information through the browser extension. When Mozilla, Google and Opera removed it from their respective stores, Avast included data extraction as an active default option in its antivirus without the user being aware of it at first.
In this way, they were able to continue to gather information about the online journey of their users. And with great detail, so much so that they even offered packages to interested companies with data for a particular domain. Do you want to know what products they look at on Amazon, where they click, how long they are connected, what they see, etc…? Well you got it. Do you want to know all that for LinkedIn or even PornHub? Well too.
Avast here claims that the data is completely anonymous and cannot be linked to any specific user, because Jumpshot complies with GDPR and CCPA regulations. And it may be theoretically so, but it has also been seen how, on occasion, and by crossing with other large databases, very valuable information can be obtained. So the risk is there.
That Avast offers free software is true, but if all this research is correct, the company would have brought in several million dollars with all this selling of information that could be used for many things, and the most obvious: to target advertising more effectively.
As we mentioned before, the big problem is that the purpose of Avast as an antivirus should be to protect the user and failing to monitor their privacy is no longer in a very good place. Therefore, although you have to decide here, even if you use their software you should consider whether to continue doing so, review the active options and permissions granted or, directly, change your antivirus.
If you want to know the minors and other data, we recommend read the original article (In English).