AVG has updated its privacy policy’s language, and in the amended document, the security firm admits that it can “make money from [its] free offerings with non-personal data”.
Advertisement
The complete updated privacy policy from AVG can be read online. The term “non-personal data”, in this context, more or less refers to the brand of your device, the language you or your apps use, and more.
How much of an issue is this level of tracking and data collection?
AVG, though, counters that it will take protective measures to sift a user’s personal details from their browsing history prior to selling the non-personal data to a third party.
In terms of content, the policy is little different to its predecessor; it is really just the presentation and tone that has changed. Information including your approximate location, ZIP code, area code, time zone, and URL used to get to the AVG website are also collected. AVG has done just that, and you might not like what you read.
“Information regarding other applications you may have on your device and how they are used”. Anything AVG deems personal is not sold to third parties, but is shared with affiliate companies depending on laws in your country. It was pointed out that while these previous policies stated AVG could collect data on “the words you search”, they didn’t make it clear that browser history data could also be collected and sold to third parties.
Advertisement
Information which is not considered personal may be shared with third-parties and publicly displayed. It drew fan support for offering a no cost version of its antivirus software, which traditionally has worked quite well, but its reputation as a champion of the average Joe is now in jeopardy over a revised privacy policy. You will also have the option to opt out of it if you wish, but you’ll have to wait until the new policies are out next month. “For instance, although we would consider your precise location to be personal data if stored separately, if we combined the locations of our users into a data set that could only tell us how many users were located in a particular country, we would not consider this aggregated information to be personally identifiable”, AVG states. Let us know by leaving your comments below, or on Google +, Facebook, or Twitter.
