Antivirus and Security vendor AVG, based in the Czech Republic and creator of one of the world’s leading antivirus software collections, is excited to showcase their one-page easy-to-read privacy policy which openly discloses that the firm sells users’ non-personal data to the third party to generate revenue from their free antivirus programs.
After Microsoft’s new operating system Windows 10 user tracking chronicles, AVG has become the second company to be completely transparent about their privacy policies, but they have taken it to the next level by disclosing how they are generating money.
The previous privacy policy stated that the company only collects browsing data and information about malware found on the machine. But now AVG’s new privacy policy has been unambiguously altered to openly disclose the collection of user data as well as the sale of the non-personal user information to third parties. This new policy will become effective starting from October 15th, 2015.
In the section “What do you collect that cannot identify me?” the company has stated that:
“We collect non-personal data to make money from our free offerings so we can keep them free.”
“We collect non-personal data to improve our products and services.”
These statements clearly indicate that AVG has now gone completely transparent, simplified its privacy policy page, and has used easy-to-read and easy-to-understand language to explain what is collected and how the information would be used.
“Without privacy online, there can be no security; and without security, there can be no trust,” said Harvey Anderson, Chief Legal Officer, AVG Technologies. “At AVG, we value our customers and believe they should know exactly how their information is being used by us. Therefore, we have updated our Privacy Policy to make it simpler, clearer and more transparent – representing only part of a continual evolution to improve AVG user choice and control.”
Certainly, the new privacy policy does outline the data collection method being followed by the company and what are their motives behind the collection of user information. At the beginning of the policy, they have also included a summarized version of every section.
The company stated that the non-personal user data includes information about applications installed on your machine; how those applications are used; advertising identification associated with your machine; “browsing and search history, including metadata”; type of Internet connection is used to connect to the products.
According to the press release, the development of a one-page privacy policy was promised by the CEO Gary Kovacs during his keynote speech at Mobile World Congress (MWC) 2015. He also challenged other tech firms to release similar transparent privacy policies.
In the last section of the privacy policy “What rights do I have over my data?” it has been stated:
“You have the right to opt out of the use or collection of certain data, including personal data and non-personal data. You have the right to expect us to protect your personal data and keep it safe. You have the right to ask us about the personal data we process about you, the purpose and nature of the processing, and to provide information on who we share it with.”
But the opting out instructions would only let you opt-out from their email newsletters or bulletins. And there is no method to opt-out from data tracking and data sharing yet.
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