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from the now-I-am-going-to-need-an-anti-antivirus-tool dept.
Avast packaged detailed user data to be sold for millions of dollars:
The popular antivirus program Avast has been selling users data to giant companies like Google, Home Depot, Microsoft and Pepsi, a joint investigation by Motherboard and PCMag found. Avast reportedly scraped data from its antivirus software and handed it off to its subsidiary Jumpshot, which repackaged the data and sold it, sometimes for millions of dollars. While Avast required users to opt-in to this data sharing, the investigation found that many were unaware that Jumpshot was selling their data.
The investigation incriminates a lot of big name companies. We don't know for certain which are past, present or potential clients, but the list includes Expedia, Intuit, Keurig, Condé Nast, Sephora, Loreal and more. Microsoft said it doesn't have a current relationship with the company. Yelp said Jumpshot was "engaged on a one-time basis," and Google did not respond to Microsoft[*] and PGMag's request for comment.
The data sold includes everything from Google searches, Google Maps location searches, activity on companies' LinkedIn pages, YouTube video visits and data on people visiting porn websites. The data is supposedly anonymized and does not include personal information, like names or contact info, but experts fear that it could be possible to de-anonymize certain users.
[* From context, I can only presume they mean Motherboard here -- Ed. (FP)]
(Score: 4, Interesting) by aliks on Tuesday January 28 2020, @07:46AM (4 children)
What I'd like to know is how much money they make from selling my data, lets say in an average year, for any average man.
I don't mind them selling my data so long as I get a cut, and I don't mean free email or news. If they are making £100 I want 30-50% of it in hard cash.
What I would also like to know is an expert/insider view on how the data is actually used. There is a lot of excited talk about companies targeting sales using illicit dossiers or information, but what techniques are they using? Is it just about presenting an advert when they know someone is definitely in the market for a product, or is it about fiddling with pricing and special offers to extract the maximum revenue from unwary punters? Or even presenting tailored ads that generally work with people whose profile looks like mine?
Does anyone know the facts on this?
To err is human, to comment divine
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 28 2020, @08:18AM (3 children)
According to TFA, the tracking company says there are over 100 million customers of Avast that opted in to the tracking. It also says that the license fee is $2,075,000. This equals 83/4000 or $0.02075 per customer per license. So each user's data is around 2 cents for literally every click and keystroke. Yes, they can sell the license to more than one customer, but just take in that they only value the most invasive information they can get on how you use a computer at two cents.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 28 2020, @11:21AM (1 child)
Opted In? Are you telling me 100 million people actively clicked the "sure, sell my data" box?
Shirley, you mean that they got trapped by the dark pattern of pre-checked boxes or word-smithing to con you into it?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 28 2020, @10:52PM
any dumb ass that uses a closed source OS and closed source "security software" opted in.
(Score: 2) by darkfeline on Wednesday January 29 2020, @04:08AM
That sounds about right. This is also why paying users a part of the money made from their data doesn't make sense (despite GP's well meaning but very ignorant desire). Users do not react well to discovering explicitly that their data is only worth single cents. Better to keep using that "free" service blissfully unaware.
You are a puny, insignificant human. The Total Perspective Vortex is not for you.
Join the SDF Public Access UNIX System today!
(Score: 4, Informative) by Rosco P. Coltrane on Tuesday January 28 2020, @08:36AM (1 child)
1/ It's free.
2/ It has access to every nook and cranny of the OS
Who the hell thought it would respect the user's data?
That's one reason I run desktop Linux: Windows needs an antivirus, and antivirus software are the perfect trojan horses for dataraping companies (not counting Windows itself, naturally)
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 28 2020, @08:16PM
There is Clamwin
(Score: 4, Funny) by Nuke on Tuesday January 28 2020, @09:46AM (2 children)
The customer is the product, and the anti-virus is the virus.
(Score: 2) by jmichaelhudsondotnet on Tuesday January 28 2020, @01:51PM
The world turned upside downe!!!!!!!!!
Or as mr. icke says, everything is an 'inversion.'
Difficult to argue with him on that point.
Consumer will be like a king to what the next generation will encounter in the newly invented lower rungs of status.
The word for that is 'prey'
I can hear all of the people in my life who have ever said 'but the company would never ruin their reputation!'
They apparently do not know how much souls are worth on the black market and are about to learn the hard way.
Slimy lateral power grab +200
decultification.org but gosh their 'community organization' must be great...
(Score: 1) by fustakrakich on Wednesday January 29 2020, @04:25AM
The customer is the carrier
La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
(Score: 2) by deimtee on Tuesday January 28 2020, @10:19AM (1 child)
Avast only runs on Windows machines. Why would they pay for it when they get it all anyway through telemetry.
If you cough while drinking cheap red wine it really cleans out your sinuses.
(Score: 2) by engblom on Tuesday January 28 2020, @10:44AM
Maybe because they have been forced to add some kind of "opt out" to Windows. This could help them to get information without a public scandal caused by not honoring opt out settings.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by zugedneb on Tuesday January 28 2020, @11:14AM (6 children)
...that is the worst problem here...
I run old W7 install with just sp1 and some few updates for gaming, and have avast cuz better then nothing...
But i distinctly remember myself opting out of this shit, and this article made me check the settings again.
Lo and behold, they were all enabled...
old saying: "a troll is a window into the soul of humanity" + also: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Ajax
(Score: 1, Disagree) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 28 2020, @11:35AM (4 children)
Why at all install something like Avast or AVG or any other free anti-virus when Microsoft is offering you Security Essentials? With Microsoft Security Essentials you are not without an anti-virus and you know the anti-virus comes from the same source as the operating system, which means Microsoft could already get all your information if they wanted. In Windows 10 it is already included automatically but you can install it for free to Windows 7.
(Score: 1) by zugedneb on Tuesday January 28 2020, @11:52AM (3 children)
does not work.
the windows crap disables itself at random times for random reasons.
i gave mom a laptop that she can use for 5-6 years now, and installed her legit copy of W7-home on it.
The windows crap would not even update, but kept complaining about some shit i could not find info on.
And that was an unmodified, clean install...
old saying: "a troll is a window into the soul of humanity" + also: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Ajax
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 28 2020, @12:57PM
Maybe with a bootlegged activation key? While I have no love for Windows, nor Microsoft, I wouldn't fault them for refusing to service a bootlegged copy of Windows (if that were indeed to be the case)
(Score: 3, Interesting) by engblom on Tuesday January 28 2020, @01:18PM (1 child)
Some years ago Microsoft broke Update (I do not know if it was an intentional change or a bug that got triggered a certain date). Thus if you have a clean installation you need to fix this problem. I think there is a KB article about which 3 updates you need to install manually before Update will work again. Most users never got affected by this as their computers had those 3 updates from before Microsoft broke the Update. Working for a computer shop I had downloaded those 3 updates and kept them on a USB drive so I could easily reinstall customers computers.
I have installed Security Essentials on many customers computers and never had any problem with it, but make sure the computer is updated before attempting to install.
(Yes, I also hate how Microsoft and I do not defend them for doing so, I just tell that there is away out of the mess and that Security Essentials actually work well)
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 28 2020, @10:37PM
I initially did the same thing with those updates in question. Later I moved to keeping a copy of Wsus offline on a 32gb USB stick, let it load nearly all updates before the machines even got connected to the internet.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 29 2020, @04:16AM
Just checked the privacy settings in AVG, still set for no data sharing, the way I left them (all unchecked). Not sure about the last time I updated it (sometime last year probably) but I don't think I checked at that time, so that update didn't change settings. But now I'm going to check more frequently. Thanks for the heads up.
(Score: 2) by jmichaelhudsondotnet on Tuesday January 28 2020, @01:58PM
This is the end of trust. Windows gave you an OS you couldn't trust, so you had to find someone else to trust, and norton and mcafee were bloated and costed money and infective, and avast was always free, from the reputable 'eastern europe' and so everyone just clicked and they cleared that one malware.
But the anti-virus was the virus the whole time. Going all the way back to like 2005. The whole time. Wow.
Almost like there was some public service there that didn't get done, that closed source software is at its core not just inefficient, but outright physically dangerous to the user. As in, stalkers can now find you because you used this product.
thesesystemsarefailing.net
decultification.org slimy lateral power grab ++++
r/stallmanwasright
(Score: 2) by cmdrklarg on Tuesday January 28 2020, @05:15PM
Stopped using them when they started getting naggy about buying a license for their paid version instead of the free one. I suppose the MBAs got their fingers into them to monetize everything.
Currently a Bitdefender user.
The world is full of kings and queens who blind your eyes and steal your dreams.