A joint investigation by PCMag and Motherboard published yesterday revealed that antivirus software Avast—which owns subsidiary AVG—has been and still is selling web browsing data of millions of its users to large companies such as Home Depot, Google, Microsoft, Pepsi, and others.
The report cites documents from Jumpshot, Avast’s subsidiary that repackages highly sensitive Internet browsing histories and sells them to many large companies around the world in the form of various products.
“The data […] includes Google searches, lookups of locations and GPS coordinates on Google Maps, people visiting companies’ LinkedIn pages, particular YouTube videos, and people visiting porn websites,” the report states, adding, “It is possible to determine from the collected data what date and time the anonymized user visited YouPorn and PornHub, and in some cases what search term they entered into the porn site and which specific video they watched.”
