Avast fined $16.5 million for ‘privacy’ software that actually sold users’ browsing data

wanderingmagus@lemmy.world to Technology@lemmy.world – 1007 points – Avast fined $16.5 million for ‘privacy’ software that actually sold users’ browsing data
theverge.com

Avast, the cybersecurity software company, is facing a $16.5 million fine after it was caught storing and selling customer information without their consent. The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) announced the fine on Thursday and said that it’s banning Avast from selling user data for advertising purposes.

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If the software is free, but not open source, it's harvesting your data. How else do you think these companies stay in business?

If you pay tho they're also harvesting your data. And if you don't use your service they make a ghost profile and harvest that data.

Yeah I love it when people say "if you don't pay you are the product" as if paying for youtube premium, google one, reddit premium or spotify will stop them from harvesting your data haha that's how naive we were back when we thought data was collected only for ads.

how naive we were back when we thought data was collected only for ads.

Yeah their cozy relationship is terrifying considering Edward Snowden's revelations. It's such a simple workaround the constitutional right to privacy. Simply buy data from a willing company. And we wonder why they don't make laws against private companies' data mining... 🤔

Free my ass! Avast charges money for that service. Hell they make you subscribe to use any service outside basic virus scan. So customers paid to have their data stolen and sold.

I dislike this sentiment. Just because something is FOSS or open source, doesn't mean it's not harvesting your data or doing something nefarious.

kinda wrong sentiment to get from the statement. statement is only saying if

if free and NOT open source > data harvest

it doesn't necessarily imply that

if free and open source > doesnt data harvest

at all. its just you have the ability to find out via code of they do or not. thats more or less in the boat of logical paradoxes you can make.

A good example would be Yuzu (the Switch emulator), it was open source and collected so much telemetry that Nintendo might go after their users.

This might be fear tactic but it shows you that you aren't safe

I don't know about Yuzu's data collection but they were destroyed because they existed.