Are You One Of Avast’s 400 Million Users? This Is Why It Collects And Sells Your Web Habits

[steven36]

Avast, the multibillion-dollar Czech security company, doesn’t just make money from protecting its 400 million users’ information. It also profits in part because of sales of users’ Web browsing habits and has been doing so since at least 2013.

 

Ondrej Vlcek, chief executive officer of Avast, has defended his company's sales of aggregated user data, though one critic has accused it of creating “spyware.”

 

That’s led to some labeling its tools “spyware,” the very thing Avast is supposed to be protecting users from. Both Mozilla and Opera were concerned enough to remove some Avast tools from their add-on stores earlier this month.

 

But recently appointed chief executive Ondrej Vlcek tells Forbes there’s no privacy scandal here. All that user information that it sells cannot be traced back to individual users, he asserts.

 

Here’s how it works, according to Vlcek: Avast users have their Web activity harvested by the company’s browser extensions. But before it lands on Avast servers, the data is stripped of anything that might expose an individual’s identity, such as a name in the URL, as when a Facebook user is logged in. All that data is analysed by Jumpshot, a company that’s 65%-owned by Avast, before being sold on as “insights” to customers. Those customers might be investors or brand managers.

 

What do those customers get? Vlcek says Jumpshot, which was initially acquired in 2013, provides “insights on how cohorts of users on the internet use the web.” For instance, it could show a percentage of visitors who went from one website to another. That could be useful to anyone monitoring an advertising campaign. 

 

“Typical customers would be, for example, investors, who would be interested in how online companies are doing in terms of their new campaigns,” the new Avast chief explains. Say Amazon launches a new product—Jumpshot could determine how much interest it’s getting online.

 

Jumpshot's own website is a little more detailed, promising “incredibly detailed clickstream data from 100 million global online shoppers and 20 million global app users.” It’s possible to “track what users searched for, how they interacted with a particular brand or product, and what they bought. Look into any category, country, or domain.”

 

That might be unnerving to privacy-predisposed folk, but Vlcek compares this kind of data trading to the kind seen in healthcare. In that market, anonymized data is used to create case studies, where by looking at data trends it could be determined who is more likely to get a disease.

 

As a final assurance, Vlcek told Forbes he recognizes customers use Avast to protect their information and so it can’t do anything that might “circumvent the security of privacy of the data including targeting by advertisers.”

 

“So we absolutely do not allow any advertisers or any third party ... to get any access through Avast or any data that would allow the third party to target that specific individual,” he adds. As for how much money this actually makes for Avast, it’s around 5% of overall revenue, says Vlcek. Given the first half of 2019 revenue stood at just under $430 million, that’s still more than $20 million.

 

Avast’s user data sales have attracted concern as recently as last week, though. Adblock Plus founder Wladimir Palant has been tracking Avast’s Web browsing over 2019, and he reported the data slurping to Mozilla and Opera before they removed the add-ons from their stores just last week.

 

Palant now wants Google to do the same for Chrome. “Google Chrome is where the overwhelming majority of these users are,” he warned in a blog post earlier this month.

 

Source

[frankl1n]

Quote

Are You One Of Avast’s 400 Million Users?

no I am not, I would suggest that anyone using any Avast soft to find an alternative. Also may I respectfully suggest to the front page staff to remove all Avast softs.

[steven36]

22 minutes ago, frankl1n said:

no I am not, I would suggest that anyone using any Avast soft to find an alternative. Also may I respectfully suggest to the front page staff to remove all Avast softs.

If they removed everything that collected data for profit they would hardly have any software  left .  If they removed  Avast they need to remove  potplayer  , AdGuard , Google Chrome  , iobit  apps  , Adobe apps .etc, etc.  This is a software blog and forum that post software updates . Remove the  software  it's just a 3rd party dead news  site . In the end they would  be just hurting themselves because  Software update blogs are a dime a dozen and there going to post the next update if Nsanedown does or not . 

 

Even though i  use Linux most of the time  and don't  use a lot of stuff other people  do i do not try to  control what people use  my roots  are from being software tester  and warez uploader  so i believe in freedom of choice . If i  try to control   what people use then i done sunk down to  Big tech's  level. I can only suggest  to try something else . Avast Antivirus has  opt outs for that data collecting stuff unlike it's addons and i dont see no one posting addons here ?

[jramon2566]

I haven't been an Avast user for many years but: if we don't want to be spied on, the best thing is not to connect to the internet.

[steven36]

2 hours ago, jramon2566 said:

I haven't been an Avast user for many years but: if we don't want to be spied on, the best thing is not to connect to the internet.

Actually Avast Antivirus can be used without internet  if you block it  with a firewall or use it on a PC without internet  because they one of  the few Antivirus  left that still lets you download  updates offline.  I believe we can do stuff to protect our privacy  but i dont believe  it's possible  to be anonymous , Because  the real anonymous hackers went to jail years ago and other hackers go to jail everyday . I cut back  on my internet usage  i only use the internet half a day  so for 12 hours i know I'm not being spied on because  i turn the internet off,   I watch movies , sleep and do stuff that don't require internet . I download movies  , read and  post the news  , answer emails and chat in IM  when im online . But i now monitor the  hours i spend online everyday . Life is too short  to be online 24/7.  

 

PS: Palant the Avast critic dont have the best  track record  with addons himself  he took his addon ABP  that once upon time was a nice open source addon like ublock origin  and made  it closed source and blackmailed the ad industry to pay him to whielist there ads . He got rich from allowing ads back before they had ublock origin i use to use Adblock Edge instead   that was a fork of his addon before he closed the source and it worked the same as ABP  did without acceptable ads he can't be trusted hes a sell out himself . 

 

AdBlock Plus uses its free software to blackmail Google and other large advertising companies

https://pando.com/2015/02/04/adblock-plus-uses-its-free-software-to-blackmail-google-and-other-large-advertising-companies/

 

Quote

I'd be upset if the plan wasn't so brazen and effective. Here's to you, AdBlock Plus, for showing once again that nothing good ever comes from using free tools offered by companies that have to make money one way or another. Congrats.

 

He was the one who pushed some ads are ok and and some are not when no ads can be trusted

https://www.marketing-interactive.com/google-ads-infected-by-malware-geared-at-cryptocurrency-mining/

https://www.zdnet.com/article/bing-ad-serves-malware-to-would-be-google-chrome-switchers/

 

Them harvesting data is a unfortunate privacy issue but  if you listen to idiots like Palant  you will need and antivirus .

 

Stuff like Avast and Kaspersky  that he bashes detect the malware that he lets get by with his half and adblocker.

 

That  was only part of the issue i had  with ABP  back  in the day 

https://blog.mozilla.org/nnethercote/2014/05/14/adblock-pluss-effect-on-firefoxs-memory-usage/

https://www.extremetech.com/computing/182428-ironic-iframes-adblock-plus-is-probably-the-reason-firefox-and-chrome-are-such-memory-hogs

 

Back  before we had x64 Firefox  ram is limited  in x86  browsers and ABP  made browsing horrible because it used more ram than any other addon  . He made up excuses  back in 2014 on why ad blockers use so much CPU  then gorhill  proved he just dont know how to code right .