How everybody else could deanonymize this data.Overview of Avast’s “de-identification”.If they really didn’t feel it could help them identify potential customers then the data wouldn’t have any value, and they wouldn’t be interested in paying AVG to access it.įrom what I’ve seen now, his statement was spot on and Avast’s data anonymization is nothing but a fig leaf.
Advertisers aren’t interested in data which can’t help them target you. At that time Graham Cluley predicted:īut let’s not kid ourselves. Back in 2015 AVG (which was acquired by Avast later) changed their privacy policy in a way that allowed them to sell browser history data. The controversy around selling user data didn’t come up just now. Symbolic image, not the actual Avast De-identification Engine Throughout the entire debacle Avast maintained that the privacy impact wasn’t so wild because the data is “de-identified and aggregated,” so that Jumpshot clients never get to see personally identifiable information (PII). After a public outcry and considerable pressure from browser vendors they decided to change their practices, so that only data of free antivirus users would be collected and only if these explicitly opt in. Avast used to collect the browsing history of their users without informing them and turn this data into profits via their Jumpshot subsidiary.
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