Avast fined $16.5 million for ‘privacy’ software that actually sold users’ browsing data

Avast fined $16.5 million for ‘privacy’ software that actually sold users’ browsing data

And Avast also owns a “privacy” VPN company called Hide My Ass.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HMA_(VPN)

through its antivirus software and browser extension

Another day, another piece of malware on the Chrome Webstore.

“Trust me, bro” privacy…

Anyway, isn’t that antivirus “free”? When something is free you aren’t the customer, you’re the product.

Edit: for those triggered by “free” and “open source”.

  1. Open Source is free as in FREEdom not free as in FREE beer. It isn’t necessarily free (beer). Most is done by the community with their spare time, and comes with absolutely no warranty (sometimes it’s even odd to see some users pick on FOSS complaining of some bug as if it was some expensive software that the programmer must spend his duty time on fixing).

  2. Even within FOSS there are fake Open Source (partially open source or the app is open source but what it does indeed is calling some close source software), this is common in companies trying to monetize their product, being it directly or indirectly.

Weren’t they caught doing this years ago?

So glad I’m a Linux user!

16.5 million, is probably like 0.1% of the earnings made. This is pretty much like rich guys parking where they want, because they only get a fine which is just the cheap cost of parking to them.

And it’s basically saying the law isn’t enforced. FTC just gets a piece of the action?

Oh wow I did not see that coming, I totally trusted avast all this time, same goes with all the VPN sponsors

anyone who works in Avast company is a fucking loser.

Laughable sentence. Wake me up when they’re forced to open source the code.

That’s the one that pegs your CPU to 100% while your task manager shows nothing running.

Well shit, I need to switch now, and I don’t have the money to do so.

I uninstalled their software off my PC cause it was 1)terrible 2) constantly spammed me to buy more of their service

This is why you don’t use free shit, especially from companies that are struggling. A desperate animal will do anything to feed itself…

now do malwarebytes .

I told y’all this product was shit.

cooing modern slimy shame quarrelsome vegetable provide cow rustic terrific

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Wait ,if they get fined who gets the money its surely not people whose privacy got leaked is it?

To the surprise of nobody, I hope

And not a single user got money from that fine.