Does avast read your Contacts info and/or your text messages and in any way sell/give this information to advertisers, third parties, or in any way use this information in a manner that is not strictly related to its security function?
Read this:
http://www.avast.com/privacy-policy
I did. But I still wasn’t absolutely clear about the answers to my question.
No sir, but the US government does!
Well I know about the government 
!, but I didn’t know if Avast is any better! It wasn’t clear to me from their privacy statement.
Since most of us here are simply avast! users like yourself, the only information we can pass along is the
link that Johnny4745 provided. :0
Our problem with Privacy is not avast!, however, the privacy war has already been lost:
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2013/05/24/network_security_is_bad_and_its_going_to_get_worse/
That however has nothing to do with Avast.