AVG to flog your web browsing, search history from mid-October Changes in the privacy policy of AVG's free antivirus doodad will allow it to collect your web browsing and search history – and sell it to advertisers to bankroll its freemium security software products. The changes will come into play on 15 October, according to the Czech-based biz in a blog post. The revised privacy policy …
Digression!
With all this data slurping going on, those on mobile broadband will be looking out for a data slurp upload blocker, because on mobile broadband the user pays for download and upload...
Oh forgot! that's what your security software is supposed to do...
@ Alan W. Rateliff, II
"... Of course, there is always Microsoft's Security Essentials for free anti-virus."
Heeeeheeeheehehehehe! (but you forgot the joke icon - fixed that for you!)
For your further entertainment:-
In 2013:
http://www.ibtimes.com/microsoft-security-essentials-fails-antivirus-certification-test-second-time-row-microsoft-disputes
In 2015:
https://redmondmag.com/articles/2015/01/27/security-essentials-fails-antivirus-test.aspx
The sad news is that I actually pay for AVG and there is no confirmation that my computer will not get included in that data slurping experiment. However even if it isn't the case I will definitely switch to another paying AV software before the deadline. Bye bye AVG...
Cheesy sarcasm fail. And don't even try and apply RAH quotes here; the free AV model has been for many years to a) push ads or b) attract paying customers by dangling bells & whistles in the form of toast ads every month or so. Both methods are perfectly acceptable.
Selling on your browser history? Much less so. What AVG are doing is making a paradigm shift to adopt the same business model as, say, gmail. If you are fine with this then great, but I will be forcibly prying this excrescence off as many of my clients' machines as possible from now on.
>And to think we used to have actual data protection laws.
We still do, however they are only concerned with the registration of those who hold and process personal data and their failure to protect such data. So expect AVG to be fully compliant: They will have declared the 'personal' data they will be collecting and processing, they will have explicitly asked for your consent for them to collect and retain such data. They have provided a means for you to exercise your rights. Hence the only additional obligation they have is to keep such data secure...
To be honest I haven't recommended AVG to anyone for quite a few years now. It used to be lean and effective but started to suffer from all Antivirus companies' standard bloating problem where they try to make their software do lots of vaguely-security-related things and none of them particularly well.
We collect non-personal data to make money
I wish companies would get over trying to pass off with this obvious bullshit. "Personal data" does not need to mean your name and phone number (etc). If you can be repeatedly identified from a crowd, then personal data has been collected. Furthermore, depending on the degree of data access, it is entirely possible to determine exactly who a person is by indirectly looking at their behaviours. Browsing history and metadata? Well, that's every GET form exposed, everything you look at, every link you follow. Metadata? That could include cookies that may reveal sign-in or username information. Does AVG ask for location information too, I wonder?
But, hey, why stop there - why not just throw in collection of metrics on installed apps and their usage for the win?
What is this? Is AVG really asking their users to pwn themselves?
How much are they gathering which isn't already collected by Google?
They may just be looking at the money Google makes selling information which also passes through their product and deciding that if the information is already on the open market they might as well cream off some of the revenue. Undercut Google a bit, perhaps.
Which begs the question of how many people will get all indignant about AVG but continue to use Google as their browser. Then again the majority of people just buy an Internet and use a Google to access it so what will they care?
If the baseline PC configuration is W10 using Google as a search engine how much privacy is there left to lose?
"If the baseline PC configuration is W10 using Google as a search engine how much privacy is there left to lose?"
That's like saying if Tim and Frank kick you in the 'nads everyday, it's OK if John does it too.
Nope, better to keep John's boot away from the family jewels, and raise Hell about it with Tim and Frank as well.
I suppose the difference between AVG and Google is that AVG is in a position to process system scans and compile a list of software (and versions) that you use. Could that data be intercepted and analysed for security holes that can be exploited?
Sure I am concerned that google has linked my work search history to my home and phone search history, but they do not get to scan my harddrive for the information.
"Your privacy is important to us" is a bit of misnomer really.
Remember the flap over 650,000 user's search history being released for "research" purposes?
If not, go to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AOL_search_data_leak and read about it.
Then stroll over to http://search-id.com/ and play around.
I have used it as an example for years when I teach security to users at NGOs, and is why I use https://ixquick.com, https://startpage.com and https://duckduckgo.com for my searches. Ixquick has the only EU privacy seal. Startpage is a privacy protecting proxy for Google by the Ixquick people. Plus I get better results that I could get from Google direct. See http://dontbubble.us/ for one of the reasons and take a peak at http://donttrack.us/ for what they do with your search queries.
On another note, the Ixquick/Startpage people have a privacy protected e-mail system that is PGP encrypted called Startmail. End to end encryption and auto expire.
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They've been happy offering it for free for what, like 10 years. To think one of their add-ons was a browser privacy tool.
I can't see how they can justify seeing my other programs and telling people about it. Oh wait, now it knows I run my browser through the Tor network and it'll now sell my whistle-blower network/history to the spooks. Nice one AVG. You can record this....uninstall.
Also, they'll now lose money because SME customers who I get to pay for AVG including server and email server licenses are about to move to other vendors since it doesn't seem to say business users will be exempt from this data rape.
Why not spare us the ads, the tracking, the BS, and just ask for some? In the case of AVG, I'd pay something not to be tracked. Same with Google. How much do they get from us, per person, per year?
Then again, there's cookie blocking, AdBlock, and HOSTS.... <sigh>
Why not spare us the ads, the tracking, the BS, and just ask for some? In the case of AVG, I'd pay something not to be tracked. Same with Google. How much do they get from us, per person, per year?
They have asked for some yet people prefer not to pay. I have paid, not much considering, two years, all the doodads, unlimited devices. I've only two devices covered out of two dozen of mine. I bought it for the people around me even though we hardly share a network (only two Internet facing devices mine) . They like the automagical handling. Come to think of it, so do I. Never a bobble here.
I expect others to (sadly) follow.
"Free" AV. It's becoming a thing of the past. First Avast, which used to be an excellent product, sold out and became nearly as bad with their constant pop-ups as the adware that they're supposed to block, now AVG abusing your privacy that they're supposed to help protect. I'd rather a company just discontinue their free offerings if they're going to do this. It's insulting and makes the world just a little worse place to be in, while actually free AV did the public a service and earned a lot of goodwill IMHO, though I understand that goodwill doesn't keep the lights on.
At least Linux is still truly free... at least until MS releases their distro.
At least Linux is still truly free... at least until MS releases their distro.
So? No-one forces you to use a particular distro, so even if MS is going to release theirs (which I doubt will happen; it's something that fills a particular internal need) and it's payware, why would you switch to Xenix ME?
"So? No-one forces you to use a particular distro, so even if MS is going to release theirs (which I doubt will happen; it's something that fills a particular internal need) and it's payware, why would you switch to Xenix ME?"
True. No one forces you to use systemd. Its just increasingly hard not to choose so. The real danger is MS might produce something useful ;-)
"At least Linux is still truly free... at least until MS releases their distro."
And using Linux reduces the usability of your PC; running Windows enables a PC to be a fully functional general purpose machine. Gaming, entertainment, email, internet and multiple other uses; switch to Linux and you've instantly lost gaming as one of the things your PC is capable of, not to mention ease of use of course
Wow, still lost in the Dark Ages of computing, are you? Gaming is alive and well and in increasingly good health on Linux As for ease of use, Linux overtook Windows years ago. Despite all their coders, MS aren't merely falling further behind Linux on ease of use, they;ve been deliberately making their own products worse. I know, I have to use MS at work, and it's a pain in the wotsits compared to Linux at home.
Thanks for the warning El Reg. When I ran into people who didn't want to or couldn't pay for antivirus I always used to recommend AVG for it's excellent protection. It's gotten rather bad the past two years with frequent popups advertising AVG products, but they were still a good product, but with this they've become malware. Why would I put antivirus software on my computer that preforms the same functions as malware.
"When I ran into people who didn't want to or couldn't pay for antivirus I always used to recommend AVG"
Ditto. I raised this question on Twitter at the weekend - but I only got one reply: Avast.
This might be an opportune time for El Reg to do a round-up of AV products - free and premium.
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Part of the problem, I think, is the amount that companies are asking for their software. What might not seem very much to someone earning north of £20K p.a. may be a huge amount to somone only bringing in minimum wages. When I was unemployed and still using Windows, I'd've found a fiver for a reasonable AV product. What I couldnt; have done is found much more. So if teh price is too high, the AV creator gets no money, rather than set it low and get some from many people.
Bit of a moot point, anyway, given that most folk I know seem to be looking at moving to Linux if they aren't already on it. How things have changed in just a few months!
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