What does Avast use our data for?

system · 2016-12-12T21:34:05.000Z

Sup guys. I am new to this forum, and so I figured I’d stop by and say hello

Just today I acquired the Avast free version, that I figured I’d test out before buying the pro version.

I do have one question to ask you though: What does Avast specifically use our browser data for? I noticed they take all browser history, browser search terms and browser downloads, and all cookies, from all our browsers, and put them into sqlite files in our local temp directory. I know they use them in the cloud to scan for malicious activities, but do they use them for anything else?

DavidR · 2016-12-12T21:46:15.000Z

Whilst I’m an avast user like yourself there have been recent post relating to this topic.
Though this question relates AVG now a part of avast it is much the same for avast software. See this post from one of the top avast team members, the CTO of avast - https://forum.avast.com/index.php?topic=194112.msg1353887#msg1353887 -

There is another link in that post to a Wilders topic along the same lines.

Eddy · 2016-12-12T21:49:05.000Z

https://www.avast.com/privacy-policy
https://www.avast.com/eula

system · 2016-12-12T22:14:27.000Z

Thanks for the replies guys.

So, from what I can read they do not sell our data. But they do share our data with third party companies and, unless requested by law or if you request a service from a third party catered to you, they strip identifiable information from them. And those third party countries may have less protective data protection laws. And then there are other limited scenarios not explained.

Alright, that’s good to know

DavidR · 2016-12-12T23:03:36.000Z

You’re welcome.

As far as how I read it (and the Wilders article is fairly clear), Avast only give it to 3rd party service companies that they employ to analyse data trends, etc. And before it is collated/sent it is anonymised and grouped so individual data can’t be identified/extracted.

As said, this is not 3rd party services requesting the data, but avast commissioning a 3rd party to analyse trends from the anonymised and collated data.

As far as legal requests and laws goes, all companies would have to comply with the same requests.

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