The US Federal Trade Commission (FTC) will ask Avast to pay $16.5 million and prohibit it from selling user browsing data for advertising purposes.
Avast is said to have violated consumers' rights browsing data internetwithout their knowledge or consent. At the same time, it appears to have misled consumers about the products used to collect their data, telling them they would prevent online tracking.
According to FTC Lina M. Khan, Avast's tactic of explicitly saying that its products protect user data, while doing the opposite, is very bad.
“Furthermore, the volume of data released by Avast is staggering: the complaint claims that by 2020 Jumpshot had collected more than eight petabytes of browsing information dating back to 2014.“.
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The FTC says that Avast Limited, based in the United Kingdom, has been collecting browsing information from consumerswho used browser extensions and Avast antivirus software since at least 2014.Consumers were not informed about this.
The data Avast collected included unique identifiers for each browser and various other information about each website users visited, timestamps, device and browser type, as well as the users' city, state and country.
In its data sharing practices, personal information users'
Furthermore, according to the FTC's allegations, Avast stored this user information indefinitely and had sold such data to more than 100 companies between 2014 and 2020 (through its subsidiary Jumpshot).
Avast also promised users it would protect their privacy by blocking tracking , but it sold their browsing data.
Avast's deceptive data collection practices were exposed in December 2019, when Mozilla decided to remove four of the company's extensions (Avast Online Security, Avast SafePrice, AVG Online Security, and AVG SafePrice) from the Firefox addon repository. Mozilla made this move after receiving reports that the extensions were tracking users' browsing activities.
See also: FTC: Bans data-forwarding company from selling Americans' location data
A joint Motherboard/PCMag investigation found a month later that Avast's Jumpshot was selling browsing data to third parties, including Omnicom.
As a result, the FTC orders Avast to pay $16.5 million and prohibits it from licensing or selling browsing data to third parties for advertising purposes.
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The company will have to obtain consent from all customers before selling or licensing browsing data. The FTC will also require Avast to delete all browsing data shared with Jumpshot and any products or algorithms that Jumpshot has developed using that data.
Additionally, Avast should notify users whose browsing data was sold to third parties.
An Avast spokesperson told BleepingComputer that the company has already contacted the FTC about settling the matter and investigating the data shared with its Jumpshot subsidiary, which closed in January 2020.
“We are committed to our mission to protect and empower people’s digital lives,” the spokesperson said.
The FTC's decision to fine Avast $16.5 million and prohibit it from selling users or licensing it for advertising purposes has significant implications for both the company and its users.
For Avast, this decision means a significant financial loss and a change in the way it operates. The company will need to find new ways to generate revenue, as it will no longer be able to exploit users for advertising purposes.
See also: FTC: Americans lost $10 billion to fraud in 2023
For Avast users, this decision could mean greater protection privacy Their data will not end up in the hands of third parties, which reduces the risk of their privacy being breached.
However, this decision could also have negative consequences for users. Avast may be forced to increase the prices of its products or reduce the quality of services to cope with the financial loss caused by the fine and the ban on selling data.
Source: www.bleepingcomputer.com
