AVG Proudly Announces It Will Sell Your Browsing History to Online Advertisers

[sinu]

Content source

http://news.softpedia.com/news/avg-proudly-announces-it-will-sell-your-browsing-history-to-online-advertisers-492146.shtml

AVG, the Czech antivirus company, has announced a new privacy policy in which it boldly and openly admits it will collect user details and sell then to online advertisers for the purpose of continuing to fund its freemium-based products.

This new privacy policy is slated to come into effect starting October 15, and the company has published a blog post explaining the decision to go with this route, along with the full privacy policy's content, so users can read it in advance and decide on their own if they want to use its services or not.

This is what AVG claims it will collect from users for the purpose of selling to interested parties, mainly online advertisers.

"We collect non-personal data to make money from our free offerings so we can keep them free, including:

- Advertising ID associated with your device;

- Browsing and search history, including meta data;

- Internet service provider or mobile network you use to connect to our products; and

- Information regarding other applications you may have on your device and how they are used."

 

[jamescv7]

Business is business so that's shouldn't be a surprising move, money should always a circulation in order to survive the development.

 

[frogboy]

I hope it only stays this way for the free products.

 

[Alex BK]

Of course it will sell our data, it's a free product, how do they make money if not in this way? Very predictable, many AV companies already do this, no surprise guys.

 

[OokamiCreed]

They all do this. I'd rather have them admit it then hide it. Some are better at hiding it than others (which could mean they are smart - unlikely - or have whistleblowers - likely). Privacy polices mean nothing. If the all the world was educated in IT to some degree of understanding what online privacy and security are, products would have suffered due to mistrust from its user base. The better an AV detects malware and the like, you can probably predict that they collect data relentlessly. They sure as hell don't find all these viruses themselves nor could they catalog so many pieces of software like they do without mass data collection.

I'm a little more than annoyed with it but unfortunately there is nothing I can do. The more advanced tech get, the less the user needs to know to operate said tech so the situation will probably get worse. Back in the beginning, users of computers and such probably knew exactly what was going on with what they had. You kind of needed to in order to use what you had. Nowadays everything is dumbed down and it only continues. I mean look at AV's. I no longer get a "what do you want to do with this file" dialog box with most of them. I loved that. Now so many do it automatically. Some do it without telling you. Goodbye files that weren't malicious. Can't even find you in the quarantine...

Just my 2 cent thrown in there. Do you best to educate those around you and maybe things will change in about 1000 years. lol

 

[Kate_L]

I think everybody does that "FREE or Paid". It's all about money.

 

[Der.Reisende]

"Proudly announces" Good one
But I do agree the guys posting before me, it's all about money, and you pay with your privacy.

 

[Kuttz]

There is no such thing as Freee...

 

[Kate_L]

Adwares do that too (Will Sell Your Browsing History to Online Advertisers), I love how most people think that if you have a paid version you are special. People should start reading EULA, ToS and so on.

 

[Alex BK]

Keep in mind: nothing is free in this world, everything has a price, in this case it's our PRIVATE DATA.

 

[frogboy]

Adwares do that too (Will Sell Your Browsing History to Online Advertisers), I love how most people think that if you have a paid version you are special. People should start reading EULA, ToS and so on.

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