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AVG Antivirus Plans to Collect & Sell Your Personal Data to Advertisers?
mouser:
I haven't followed the story closely but from the headlines I gathered that AVG are touted as the honest guys telling us as it is, while everyone else does it but hides in legal gobbledygook.
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The notion that collecting and reporting "browsing and search history" is standard operating procedure for an antivirus/firewall tool is insanity -- it's completely counter-intuitive and unacceptable -- it has nothing to do with the job of these programs. And for software we pay (yearly) for?!?!? >:( It better not turn out to be true.
dr_andus:
The notion that collecting and reporting "browsing and search history" is standard operating procedure for an antivirus/firewall tool is insanity -- it's completely counter-intuitive and unacceptable -- it has nothing to do with the job of these programs.
-mouser (September 20, 2015, 01:27 PM)
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Sure, I'm not saying I knew it all along or that it's OK for them to do so. But in the light of how even Microsoft is putting user data collection at the heart of its business model, it no longer surprises me. I've only ever used free a/v programs, and probably there are lots of others like me out there, so it means "we" were the product. But if I'd paid for it, I'd be doubly incensed.
Anyway, it supports the point expressed by some on this forum that a/v software are spamware...
J-Mac:
Here's another comment about this from Woody Leonard's blog:
We just learned last week that AVG Free, the antivirus product, does something similar.
I was shocked to learn last week that Firefox – long a bastion of snooplessness – has started using data that it collects to target ads, as well.
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He also mentions Firefox as one who is doing similar.
Jim
app103:
Don't most anti-virus/anti-malware apps flag applications that collect this type of data and phone it home, labeling them as PUPs, spyware, or malware?
And search/browsing history isn't always anonymous or non-personal. History says it isn't.
panzer:
Mouser, this story is mentioned three times one after another on https://www.donationcoder.com/blog/.
:)
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