Recent news about Avast selling our data

Avast Free Antivirus / Premium Security
1

From Kim Komando’s web site:
"… according to the joint investigation by Motherboard and PCMag, leaked user data and internal documents revealed the famed antivirus developer Avast has been engaging in data collection behind the scenes.

The report details that Avast has been collecting data from customers like web browsing history, shopping habits and searches via a subsidiary called Jumpshot.

Clients reportedly paid Jumpshot millions of dollars for this data, with big names like McDonald’s, Conde Nast, Google, Sephora, Intuit and more. Some of the clients even asked for something called an “all clicks feed,” which tracks specific clicks and web interactions to a startling degree.

As an example of the depth of information Avast was collecting, reporters discovered one user visited porn websites, as well as what they were searching for and how they arrived there.

2

Everyone saying all of this, but no one tells if avast! antivirus alone collects data in such a way or just its browser extensions. Meaning, if you’re not using avast! browser extensions, you’re not even affected.

3

According to article in czech newspapers, browser add on was needed to collect data. In spíte of this fact,users did not accept IT in EULA.There weré statement "we collect somedata to improve our produkt ,but NOT TO SELL IT. Avast should repay their users,this is shame of trustworthy czech company.

4

Yeah, they certainly didn’t do any favors to their reputation with all this. I hope whatever % they got from selling data was worth losing pretty much all reputation they managed to get through years. Would think companies these days know how hard it’s to have good reputation and how quickly you can lose all of it if you’re stupid and/or greedy.

5
6

And be sure to check every Avast program separately for privacy options, example, i have Avast premium security + avast cleanup premium:

  • they have both separated privacy options, so its not enough to uncheck them only in one program… all of them have it on by default.
7

The Browser Extensions was one thing, but if this is related to the actual program this time, i’d say there reputation is down in the dumps for a long time now, as internet won’t forget things like this, Even Tech reviews on youtube already on this, I’m sure there not Editiors choice anymore on PCMag’s site lol

8

Because of these privacy problems, PCMag will no longer name Avast as the Editors Choice.

9

Good job avast! team I guess. This is when you put earnings and profits all the way in front of everything else…

10

L.S.

Tracking takes place everywhere and is part of the core-business of every major modern data player on the Interwebz.
For avast that means 32% tracking per webpage, as can be established here:
https://whotracks.me/websites/avast.com.html

On this forum no tracking, ads and security threats are being detected. Just mere content.

For avast dot com, see this privacy & security report: https://webcookies.org/cookies/avast.com/21520
Privacy Impact Score = meaning an overall E-grade status.

Cookie storing a token that can be used to retrieve client identifier from Google Accelerated Mobile Pages (AMP) Client ID service

When 3rd paries try to de-anonymize user IDs, it is just what these parties do or try to do, isn’t it? :smiley:

httpOnly - cookie can be read by client-side JavaScript which might increase chances of stealing it in case of a successful Cross-Side Scripting attack. It’s recommended that cookies storing authentication-related session token are protected by the flag…

A number of privacy protection projects maintain lists of known web trackers. These trackers will be in most cases effectively blocked by their browser extensions:
Tracker google (category disconnect) will be blocked by disconnectme
Tracker google (category disconnect) will be blocked by privacybadger

A number of privacy protection projects maintain lists of known web trackers. These trackers will be in most cases effectively blocked by their browser extensions:
Tracker yandex (category advertising) will be blocked by disconnectme
Tracker yandex (category advertising) will be blocked by privacybadger
Tracker yandex (category advertising) will be blocked by eff

Also advanced tracking by beacon-APIs and GIF1x! tracking (can be blocked using ZenMate Web Firewall extension).

Publisher identifiers
The website uses the following advertisement publisher ids:

GTM-PZ48F8 (-www.googletagmanager.com)
34150835 (-metrika.yandex.ru)
GTM-ID (-www.googletagmanager.com)

uBlock Original blocks most of it via EasyPrivacy filter, like:
-https://amplifypixel.outbrain.com/pixel?mid=00e90e8b457ea896ec99c27c7feedfda33&dl=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.avast.com%2Fde-de%2Findex%23pc&bust=049128163629211485

Because of the following filter

||amplifypixel.outbrain dot com^ Consider here: https://whotracks.me/websites/amplifypixel.outbrain%20dot%20com

I.m.h.o. every browser user, being online should use a good adblocker and scriptblocker,
like for instance uBlock Origin combined with uMatrix.

Also be alerted whenever trying to connect out to a http:// website, to have it blocked initially,
so one could consider whether it is safe enough to connect out there after being alerted.
HTTP Only extensions that alert in this way will keep you out of harm’s way.

Avast may be attacked in this way, but we have heard little about the overall practices going on at Google’s, facebook, CloudFlare’s,
Amazon, Alibaba’s, etc. etc. making a very long list, we hear nothing essential about, so why to come and rig the boat here for avast?

“Who is without any sins, should cast the first stone here”. Who is that gonna be? I am asking Motherboard, PCMag.

polonus
(fully dedicated to avast’s mission for well over a decade and half & very proud where avast took me
in the realm of being a volunteer third party cold recon website security analyst and error-hunter,
providing me with a platform to do so).

11
Avast may be attacked in this way, but we have heard little about the overall practices going on at Google's, facebook, CloudFlare's, Amazon, Alibaba's, etc. etc. making a very long list, we hear nothing essential about, [b]so why to come and rig the boat here for avast?[/b]
Because it is a security company .... it should protect privacy anyway possible
12
13

LOL what? No, just no. Amazon, Google, FB, etc, have received a lot of attention. Thing is, Google and FB have an core business model of data selling since basically the start (Google Ads system was launched not too far after their search engine became a hit). It’s their core business. Amazon has an thing that should be looked at too more critically, but as far as we know Amazon doesn’t straight-up sell fully identifiable data to third-parties from customers on their marketplace. ‘Stacked’ metadata, maybe. Direct data on marketplace customers? I highly doubt it - they’d be out of business if that would happen. (Although I can’t say if they don’t trade customer data of the likes of stuff they see through AWS etc)

Avast has been an security vendor first and foremost, till without notification they decided to start selling customer data. Two problems: not their core business, and no notification of doing so. That’s why what Avast has been/is doing is one of the worst cases I’ve encountered over the years so far.

14

Very very disappointed with this + Avast stop release public Betas (about 3months) and it is right time for uninstall immediately.
As a longtime user of avast free (10 year+) it is very emotional and tough for me to go, But privacy is important topic. :frowning: :frowning:

15

Avast’s commitment to responsible data use
https://blog.avast.com/our-commitment-to-responsible-data-use

16

A message from Avast CEO Ondrej Vlcek
https://blog.avast.com/a-message-from-ceo-ondrej-vlcek

17

I hope it was worth it, if you look at the poll you are losing about half your users so far. Let alone your reputation is in the toilet. Really you should just go out of business and make a new anti-virus company so you can grab more cash using our information like the other crooks on the internet. Maybe name it “Ahead”, like you go ahead and screw people for money. Like some kind of prostitute.

This just goes to show you that we need legislation to make this stuff a crime.

18

The Avast uberevangelists don’t have any problem with what Avast has done. Why, I don’t know.

19

I have a problem with it to an extent. Given I’ve always disabled data sharing the first thing after installing avast! I wouldn’t even be affected, but it’s still disturbing thought that they’ve gone from collecting data to improve protection which I’m fine with, to collecting just all data and selling it further. Aggregated or anonymized or not, why was there a need? Just to satisfy stupid greedy investors and entirely ruin your reputation? I really don’t know what they were thinking…

20

You sure about that? I’ve always custom installed core shields only & disabled all available data share options & geekarea config, but webshields was scraping data directly.