AVG Antivirus recently updated its privacy policy to include some rather unsettling terms. Under the clarified policy, AVG is able to sell user search and browser history data to third parties. The new policy goes into effect on 15 October, giving users time to opt out and uninstall the anti-virus from their computers.
This new policy explains that the company will be able to collect “non-personal data” and that it could be sold to third parties. AVG has also explained that the ability to collect the data has been present in the previous privacy policy, although it was using different language and therefore less clear about what the software was doing.
Past privacy policies had said that AVG would be able to collect data on “the words that you search”, but did not make it clear that browser history data would also be collected. This new policy is not entirely introducing new terms of use, but is an effort from AVG to be more transparent about what it is doing.
Naturally, this news has not been received well by privacy activists. Alexander Hanff security expert and chief executive of Think Privacy says that this change puts AVG antivirus “squarely into the category of spyware”. Hanff has urged users to uninstall the software as soon as they can because it is “utterly unethical to [the] highest degree and a complete and total abuse of the trust we give our security software.”
Admittedly, this new policy from AVG is not too different from what Facebook or Google has been doing all this while. The only difference is that AVG provides antivirus software that is given unfettered access to our computers, where it is free to pry into every file.
It is definitely a concern if antivirus companies start selling customer meta data to third parties for profit; especially if those companies also offer paid versions of their products. Fortunately, there are plenty of other alternative anti-virus programmes out there to choose from that don’t sell our data to other people; well, as far as we know anyway.
