CCleaner 5.46 ships with clearer privacy options

[ARMOUR]

CCleaner 5.46 is now available; the new version promises better privacy options, clearer explanation of privacy-related features, and a data fact sheet that highlights what is collected and why.

 

The past couple of months were rough for CCleaner, a popular program to clean temporary files and remove other unwanted bits of data from Windows systems. Piriform, maker of CCleaner and an Avast company, introduced a new privacy page back in May in the program so that users could disable the collection of data for analytical purposes among other things.

 

The introduction of the new privacy option caused confusion among free users of CCleaner as none of the options were selectable. Since options were checked by default, the privacy page suggested that free users could not disable the collection of anonymous data at all.

 

A Piriform representative contacted me shortly thereafter with a statement that revealed that the company was not collecting personally identifiable information from free users and that this was the reason why the privacy options were not available to them.

 

The company released CCleaner 5.44 a month later and with it a new advertisement popup that advertised the Pro version of the software.

 

Then came CCleaner 5.45 and all hell broke lose. The two main changes in this release was met with negative feedback: CCleaner's Active Monitoring component could not be disabled anymore in the program, and the privacy settings were all removed for free versions of the application.

 

Piriform did extend the analytics function of the software and integrated the extended collecting of data in the Active Monitoring component. Piriform added a link to the new data factsheet on the page that points to a page on the official CCleaner website. A table on the page lists data groups, e.g. usage data, offer data, or product maintenance, the information that is collected and why it is collected. Usage Data, for instance, collects data about basic interactions with CCleaner such as views or button clicks, and performance indicators.

According to the data factsheet,no user-specific data is collected. Here is the full list of what is collected:

Data group	Data categories reported	Why is it reported?
Product Maintenance	Installation event, product edition, product version, license status, country, language, and operating system version information	It provides us with basic system data so we can: Make sure that CCleaner works across different operating systems Understand requirements to update CCleaner with the latest cleaning definitions and features Detect performance, translation issues and bugs in CCleaner, and prioritize their fixes Offer automatic updates and notify users when an update is available (including security updates) Without this information we would not be able to maintain CCleaner and it would not be safe or responsible for us to let you use it.
License Details	The license key used to activate and authenticate the license, the type of license	It lets us know your license details so we: Know whether you’re using a free or paid version of CCleaner Can manage paid license terms Can make sure that paying users get the additional product functionality that they’ve paid for
Usage Data	Basic interaction with CCleaner (views, button clicks), performance indicators (e.g. amount of junk cleaned)	It helps us understand how CCleaner is used so we can give you a better user experience by: Improving product features (and developing new ones) Improving interface design Identifying the causes of technical issues so we can fix them Letting us know if we’re doing things right (if you’re cleaning lots, you probably like CCleaner!)
Offer Data	Product edition, product version, if Chrome is installed, antivirus installed, operating system version information, language	It means that in our free product we can deliver offers for Chrome and Avast Antivirus in a relevant, timely and contextual manner. It also means we can make sure an offer is not displayed if: Either product is already installed on your computer You’ve already clicked on the offer but chose not to proceed The offer has recently been displayed
Emergency Update Check	Product edition, product version, operating system version information, language	It means we can detect and deliver an emergency update, should one be required.
Crash Reports	Apps running at the time of crash, operating system version information, CCleaner version/build	It helps us diagnose issues within CCleaner so we can deliver fixes in future versions.

 

Article Source:

• ghacks.net
• ccleaner.com

 

[0nl1n3]

I guess they learned their lesson...