Posted September 18, 2015
Just a heads up, if any of you use AVG, they sell on your data:
Copy/pasted for those not wanting to visit Reddit:
In there new privacy policy they state in the section "What do you collect that cannot identify me?"
http://www.avg.com/gb-en/privacy-new?A=#what-do-you-collect-that-cannot-identify-me
We collect non-personal data to make money from our free offerings so we can keep them free, including: Advertising ID associated with your devices 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. Sometimes browsing history or search history contains terms that might identify you. If we become aware that part of your browsing history might identify you, we will treat that portion of your history as personal data, and will anonymize this information. We may also aggregate and/or anonymize personal data we collect about you. For instance, although we would consider your precise location to be personal data if stored separately, if we combined the locations of our users into a data set that could only tell us how many users were located in a particular country, we would not consider this aggregated information to be personally identifiable.
Even though they state that if they find that could identify you then they will remove it. but they only say if they will remove it if they can detect it.
They later state in "Do you share my data?"
http://www.avg.com/gb-en/privacy-new?A=#do-you-share-my-data
Yes, though when and how we share it depends on whether it is personal data or non-personal data. AVG may share non-personal data with third parties and may publicly display aggregate or anonymous information.
further down the article under "What rights do I have over my data?"
http://www.avg.com/gb-en/privacy-new?A=#what-rights-do-i-have-over-my-data
You have the right to opt out of the use or collection of certain data, including personal data and non-personal data, by following the instructions here. http://www.avg.com/gb-en/privacy-preferences
That link just takes you to instructions on how opt out of the new letter newsletter.
Source: http://www.avg.com/gb-en/privacy-new?A
Source: http://www.avg.com/gb-en/privacy-new?A
EDIT: It seams from further reading that this isn't new but i only found it because of there new one page page privacy policy. I think this new layout made it possible to see the correlation without a law degree hence why i found it.
EDIT 2: Weird just released an article on this with quotes from:
Alexander Hanff, chief executive, Think Privacy
"It is utterly unethical to the highest degree and a complete and total abuse of the trust we give our security software"
Orla Lynskey, a data protection and IT law expert from London School of Economics
"It appears that AVG is adopting a generous interpretation of the data protection rules in order to justify its data use policy," Lynskey argued. "Although some of the data they classify as 'non-personal' might not identify individuals directly, they may be indirectly identifiable based on that data."
http://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/2015-09/17/avg-privacy-policy-browser-search-data
EDIT 3: Sorry their not there. I cant change the title after posting.
EDIT 4: They have now removed the link to opt out and are just saying you can opt out but with no instructions on how to do so.
EDIT: 5 Sorry i was wrong you can disable it when the policy goes live on the 15th October
Copy/pasted for those not wanting to visit Reddit:
In there new privacy policy they state in the section "What do you collect that cannot identify me?"
http://www.avg.com/gb-en/privacy-new?A=#what-do-you-collect-that-cannot-identify-me
We collect non-personal data to make money from our free offerings so we can keep them free, including: Advertising ID associated with your devices 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. Sometimes browsing history or search history contains terms that might identify you. If we become aware that part of your browsing history might identify you, we will treat that portion of your history as personal data, and will anonymize this information. We may also aggregate and/or anonymize personal data we collect about you. For instance, although we would consider your precise location to be personal data if stored separately, if we combined the locations of our users into a data set that could only tell us how many users were located in a particular country, we would not consider this aggregated information to be personally identifiable.
Even though they state that if they find that could identify you then they will remove it. but they only say if they will remove it if they can detect it.
They later state in "Do you share my data?"
http://www.avg.com/gb-en/privacy-new?A=#do-you-share-my-data
Yes, though when and how we share it depends on whether it is personal data or non-personal data. AVG may share non-personal data with third parties and may publicly display aggregate or anonymous information.
further down the article under "What rights do I have over my data?"
http://www.avg.com/gb-en/privacy-new?A=#what-rights-do-i-have-over-my-data
You have the right to opt out of the use or collection of certain data, including personal data and non-personal data, by following the instructions here. http://www.avg.com/gb-en/privacy-preferences
That link just takes you to instructions on how opt out of the new letter newsletter.
Source: http://www.avg.com/gb-en/privacy-new?A
Source: http://www.avg.com/gb-en/privacy-new?A
EDIT: It seams from further reading that this isn't new but i only found it because of there new one page page privacy policy. I think this new layout made it possible to see the correlation without a law degree hence why i found it.
EDIT 2: Weird just released an article on this with quotes from:
Alexander Hanff, chief executive, Think Privacy
"It is utterly unethical to the highest degree and a complete and total abuse of the trust we give our security software"
Orla Lynskey, a data protection and IT law expert from London School of Economics
"It appears that AVG is adopting a generous interpretation of the data protection rules in order to justify its data use policy," Lynskey argued. "Although some of the data they classify as 'non-personal' might not identify individuals directly, they may be indirectly identifiable based on that data."
http://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/2015-09/17/avg-privacy-policy-browser-search-data
EDIT 3: Sorry their not there. I cant change the title after posting.
EDIT 4: They have now removed the link to opt out and are just saying you can opt out but with no instructions on how to do so.
EDIT: 5 Sorry i was wrong you can disable it when the policy goes live on the 15th October