Leaked Documents Expose the Secretive Market for Your Web Browsing Data

Good afternoon everyone,

Without wishing to create controversy or accuse anyone. But one piece of news has arrived, which I believe should be, at the very least, shared, after everyone draws their own conclusions.

Original Source: https://bit.ly/2SH4gpJ

"It has taken almost 30 years, but the smokescreen is slowly disappearing. And the big lie on the Internet comes out. We thought everything was free because they showed us advertising. A few ads in exchange for using applications and services. But it’s not. Everything is free because they’re trafficking in our privacy. There’s no limit to it. From GPS geolocation to the list of porn videos you’ve seen on PornHub. These are some of the things that supposedly include the navigation data packages that Avast, famous for its free antivirus, sold to dozens of companies, including Google, Microsoft, Pepsi, L’Oréal and many others.

Research by Motherboard and PCMag has uncovered documents that allegedly show that Avast’s free anti-virus and other security software collected users’ browsing data, organized it into packages and sold it in batches through the company JumpShot to dozens of companies. The list includes Google, Yelp, Microsoft, McKinsey, Pepsi, Expedia, L’Oréal, Sephora, TripAdvisor, Home Depot, Condé Nast, Intuit, and others.

This data includes very sensitive information such as LinkedIn profiles, GPS navigation, list of YouTube and PornHub video views, Google Maps coordinates, etc. Supposedly this data was grouped and sorted so that it could be “studied” better, and sold for millions of dollars completely openly in JumpShot:

The big lie is the same as always: this data is supposedly collected anonymously. They don’t include personal data, but that’s not a problem for Big Data. The seriousness of the matter is that certain data is collected together, and using the Big Data can be interpolated to, according to some experts who have examined it, identify some of its owners.

With GPS data, navigation in local supermarket websites, visits to certain LinkedIn profiles, it is enough to put together a few lines and do some research to be able to locate people. And from there link to the YouTube videos you have seen, the list of PornHub videos you have visited, where you buy and what, your political ideology, your work etc.

Data that ended up in the hands of companies as important as Google, Microsoft, Pepsi, TripAdvisor, etc.

These are the most sold laptops in Amazon Spain, the main online shop in our country. The computers with the best quality-price ratio triumph.

Apparently, Avast collected this information through a browser plug-in that supposedly protected you from malicious websites. But the payment was to collect all your browsing data to sell it.

Avast has reported that it has long since stopped collecting data from this plug-in, but apparently continues to do so from its anti-virus software. It’s hidden in the fact that it always asks users if they allow data to be collected. But users consulted by Motherboard claim that even if they gave their permission, they thought it was for internal use, they didn’t know they were selling it to other companies.

This is another scandal, but unfortunately it will not have consequences for the companies involved. As has happened on previous occasions with Facebook and other companies, their number of users has not decreased. We don’t learn… or care…"

Update: On Thursday and after this investigation, Avast announced it will stop the Jumpshot data collection and wind down Jumpshot’s operations with immediate effect. You can find the original story below.

Original Source: http://collection.video/data5

It’s old news It’s been reported on several posts here.