Such data might include a user’s browsing and search history (including meta data) so that AVG can “make money from our free offerings” and “keep them free”. As it says, non-personal data is collected, but things like advertising ID associated with devices, browsing and search history (including metadata), ISP or mobile network used to connect, and information on other installed applications. That’s nice, as it’ll now be one page instead of having everyone scroll down and click on the accept button, but in that one page it lets you know what kind of data is collected.
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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.
A Reddit discussion has heard from furious users who spotted that the simplified policy effectively gives the company permission to sell its mailing lists to third parties for fun and profit.
In terms of content, the policy is little different to its predecessor; it is really just the presentation and tone that has changed.
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Continuing on with your devices, device security information such as encryption levels and password attributes are collected. Why this sudden adjustment to AVG’s policies you wonder? According to the updated policy, AVG can collect data you yourself provide – plus, it can use cookies to track your searchers and your activities on websites, apps and other products. “We use data to improve those products and services; provide support; send notifications, offers, and promotions; and to make money from our free offerings so that we can continue to offer them for free”, justifies AVG to the why do you collect my data query. “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”. Anything else is considered non-personal and sold off to third parties, plus publicly displayed. Users can opt-out of certain data collection and usage policies, but instructions on how to do so will not be live until the new privacy policy goes into effect next month. The new policy explicitly allows the retention of browser history and the ability to sell that information on to third parties. Let us know by leaving your comments below, or on Google +, Facebook, or Twitter.
