AVG proudly announces that it will sell your browsing history toadvertisers

http://yro.slashdot.org/story/15/09/19/1319201/avg-proudly-announces-it-will-sell-your-browsing-history-to-online-advertisers?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed& utm_campaign=Feed%3A+Slashdot%2Fslashdot+%28Slashd ot%29
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A.M

On 19/09/15 16:29, A.M wrote:
http://yro.slashdot.org/story/15/09/...ly-announces-i
t-will-sell-your-browsing-history-to-online-advertisers?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed& utm_campaign=Feed%3A+Slashdot%2Fslashdot+%28Slashd ot%29


Fantastic. Time to switch over to Linux.

On 2015-09-19 1:39 PM, Linux User wrote:
On 19/09/15 16:29, A.M wrote:
http://yro.slashdot.org/story/15/09/...ly-announces-i
t-will-sell-your-browsing-history-to-online-advertisers?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed& utm_campaign=Feed%3A+Slashdot%2Fslashdot+%28Slashd ot%29



Fantastic. Time to switch over to Linux.

Or use another anti-virus. Asking a user annoyed by AVG to switch over
to Linux is like handing a depressed guy a rope.


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A.M

A.M wrote:

http://yro.slashdot.org/story/15/09/19/1319201/avg-proudly-announces-it-will-sell-your-browsing-history-to-online-advertisers?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed& utm_campaign=Feed%3A+Slashdot%2Fslashdot+%28Slashd ot%29

But who would find the information valuable as to how many AVG users
there are? You aren't wandering anywhere on the Web with AVG. So who
would care about how many users there are of AVG versus knowing what
products they looked at or where they visited on the Web. Seems those
interest in an AVG user count would be other anti-virus authors, so AVG
would be selling the info to AVG's competitors. What non-personal
"details" could AVG collect? AVG never does define what is the "data".
Guess AVG doesn't care that their freeware products will change
classification to spyware products.

The old privacy policy said, "AVG may share NPII [non-personally
identifying information] or anonymized data with third parties in order
to improve our AVG Products and your experience using them." Sharing
does not exclude compensation. While you might have read "sharing"
meaning free distribution, that's not what the word means. To "improve"
their products can also include continuing to provide a free version of
their products. "Improve" is not defined. So it appears AVG is simply
issuing a clearer defined privacy policy. Once the wording becomes less
vague then users start to know what is really happening and then they
start to question if the more detailed policy is okay with them. They
don't get too detailed because it is well known that the vast majority
of users don't read policies or licenses and those who do often skew
the meanings to their favor without regard that they were not the author
of the policies or licenses.

I get amused when Internet Explorer bashers tell everyone they should
switch to another web browser (usually the one they chose for themself)
but fail to mention how their web browser fingerprints them. Mozilla
collects web browser version, list of add-ons and their versions, OS and
version, locale (monthly info sent to Google's geolocation service to
determine which snippets on their default home page to send to you),
total number of connection requests, time of last request, your IP
address, device hardware, timing of browser events, length of sessions
and number of session restores, crash counts, age of your profile(s),
and number of pages you visited. A lot of this data falls under
"telemetry" collection, the same stuff that is worrying Windows 10 users
and even Windows 7/8 users with all the recent telemetry updates. In
addition, and unless you disable it, your searches are tracked if you
have Firefox allow the search site to push its suggestions which means
the search provider had to know what you entered. I have it disabled
but do not remember if that is the default or if the search suggestions
option is defaulted to enabled. Mozilla claims only non-personal info
about you will be collected and distributed to others; however, they
fingerprint you by IP address, geolocation, your hardware, OS version,
Firefox version, how you use Firefox, and other telemetry data, so just
how non-personal can be all the telemtry data that is used to
fingerprint you. If all that data was always aggregated with data from
other users, yeah, then you are just one in a huge crowd with no
differentiation (a smearing of many fingerprints), but that's an
internal function by Mozilla and I see no mention that they do not
retain individual fingerprints. Seems they would have to keep those
records so they can track changes in the amalgamated non-personal data.
If they discarded the old records, they could not monitor the flux over
time in the amalgamated data.

On Sat, 19 Sep 2015 15:50:28 -0500, VanguardLH wrote in


A.M wrote:

http://yro.slashdot.org/story/15/09/19/1319201/avg-proudly-announces-it-will-sell-your-browsing-history-to-online-advertisers?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed& utm_campaign=Feed%3A+Slashdot%2Fslashdot+%28Slashd ot%29

But who would find the information valuable as to how many AVG users
there are? You aren't wandering anywhere on the Web with AVG.

It looks to me like AVG monitors your browsing activity (for "safe
browsing") just like MBAM and others can do.
--
Web based forums are like subscribing to 10 different newspapers
and having to visit 10 different news stands to pickup each one.
Email list-server groups and USENET are like having all of those
newspapers delivered to your door every morning.

CRNG wrote:

On Sat, 19 Sep 2015 15:50:28 -0500, VanguardLH wrote in


A.M wrote:

http://yro.slashdot.org/story/15/09/19/1319201/avg-proudly-announces-it-will-sell-your-browsing-history-to-online-advertisers?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed& utm_campaign=Feed%3A+Slashdot%2Fslashdot+%28Slashd ot%29

But who would find the information valuable as to how many AVG users
there are? You aren't wandering anywhere on the Web with AVG.

It looks to me like AVG monitors your browsing activity (for "safe
browsing") just like MBAM and others can do.

"Who" (in "who would find ...") means *other* than AVG since the article
is about to whom AVG is selling their customer data.