The Federal Trade Commission announced Thursday that it will ban antivirus giant Avast from selling consumers' web browsing data to advertisers after the company claimed its products interfere with users' online tracking.
Avast also settled a federal regulator's claim for $16.5 million, which the FTC says provides relief to Avast users whose sensitive browsing data was improperly sold to advertising giants and data brokers. Stated.
“While Avast promised users that its products would protect the privacy of their browsing data, the opposite was true,” FTC Consumer Protection Director Samuel Levin said in a statement Thursday. “Avast's bait-and-switch surveillance tactics violated consumer privacy and violated the law,” Levine said.
According to the FTC, Avast has been using its browser extensions to collect its customers' online browsing habits, including web searches and websites visited, for years, and the antivirus giant says it can block online tracking cookies. It claimed to “protect your privacy.”
But the FTC alleged that Avast, through its now-shuttered Jumpshot subsidiary, sold consumer browsing data to more than 100 other companies for tens of millions of dollars in revenue.
Regulators said the browsing data Jumpshot sold revealed consumers' religious beliefs, health concerns, political leanings, location and other sensitive information.
A joint investigation by Vice News and PCMag in January 2020 revealed that Jumpshot sold sensitive web browsing data to companies including Google, Yelp, Microsoft, Home Depot, and consulting giant McKinsey. became. The report found that Jumpshot also sold access to users' click data, including the specific web links users clicked on.
At the time, Avast had over 430 million active users worldwide. Jumpshot announced that it was able to access data from 100 million devices.
Following a joint Vice-PCMag report, Avast shut down its Jumpshot subsidiary days later.
Avast merged with NortonLifeLock in 2021 in an $8.1 billion deal and is now owned by parent company Gen Digital, which also owns computer utility app CCleaner.
When asked for comment on Thursday, Gen Digital president Jess Mony issued a statement to TechCrunch: The operational provisions of the settlement are consistent with Avast's current privacy and security programs. ”
Avast's statement said it disagreed with the government's “allegations and characterization of the facts” and did not say why or how, but said the company was “pleased to resolve this matter.” .