Avast reconsiders: in a statement they inform that they are closing Jumpshot and that they will stop collecting user data

Avast, one of the most popular antivirus for Windows, was in the news a few days ago and not exactly for the better. It had been collecting user data without their knowledge and had profited by selling it to third-party companies using a bridge company, Jumpshot, a subsidiary of Avast .

The scandal with user data and privacy involved came to light thanks to an investigation by two media outlets, Motherboard and PCMag. And after the news came to light, Avast had no choice but to take action and in this regard has announced that Jumpshot is shutting down and that it will stop collecting user data

With no way out but to turn back

To put us in the background, Avast had collected browsing data from users who had the browser installed on their computers or the extension in the browser. Its antivirus software had been in charge of spying on users' network movements and then selling them as anonymous data to third-party companies.

Data that, were not linked to the name of the person, to an email address or IP address and that collected references to searches, positioning location with GPS, links visited on YouTube, pages you search on LinkedIn or porn pages. They were then sold to companies like Google, Microsoft, PepsiCo, Yelp, Home Depot, Expedia, Intuit, Keurig, Condé Nast, Sephora, Loreal, or McKinsey. A practice that was a flagrant attack on privacy.

And if we think about the number of users who had Avast on their computers... we get an idea of ​​the depth of the matter. Avast claims more than 435 million monthly active users and Jumpshot claims data from 100 million devices. And despite the fact that the data was anonymous, the quantity and detail were such that it was not difficult to associate them and identify users based on the information obtained.

A scandal of enormous proportions that has left no other way for Avast than to announce in a statement signed by Ondrej Vlcek, CEO of Avast , which abandons this practice, something that the company has announced when informing that it is closing Jumpshot:

Avast has had no choice but to back down and admit its responsibility in this matter, after initially claiming that it did not violate anything, Well, this policy was included in the privacy settings that could be accessed when installing the antivirus or the extension.And with this practice, what Avast was doing was precisely what it was trying to avoid: threatening our browsing.

Via | Avast