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posted by martyb on Tuesday January 28 2020, @06:51AM   Printer-friendly
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)]


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  • (Score: 4, Interesting) by aliks on Tuesday January 28 2020, @07:46AM (4 children)

    by aliks (357) on Tuesday January 28 2020, @07:46AM (#949972)

    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?

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  • (Score: 3, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 28 2020, @08:18AM (3 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 28 2020, @08:18AM (#949979)

    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)

      by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 28 2020, @11:21AM (#950013)

      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

        by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 28 2020, @10:52PM (#950295)

        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

      by darkfeline (1030) on Wednesday January 29 2020, @04:08AM (#950457) Homepage

      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.

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