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o An Avast antivirus subsidiary sells 'Every search. Every click. Every buy.AnonUser

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An Avast antivirus subsidiary sells 'Every search. Every click. Every buy.

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Subject: An Avast antivirus subsidiary sells 'Every search. Every click. Every buy.
Date: Thu, 30 Jan 2020 09:13:42 -0000 (UTC)
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 by: AnonUser - Thu, 30 Jan 2020 09:13 UTC

https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/qjdkq7/avast-antivirus-sells-user-browsing-data-investigation

Leaked Documents Expose the Secretive Market for Your Web Browsing Data
An Avast antivirus subsidiary sells 'Every search. Every click. Every buy. On every site.' Its clients have included Home Depot, Google, Microsoft, Pepsi, and McKinsey.
by Joseph Cox
Jan 27 2020, 7:00am
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Image: Hunter French

An antivirus program used by hundreds of millions of people around the world is selling highly sensitive web browsing data to many of the world's biggest companies, a joint investigation by Motherboard and PCMag has found. Our report relies on leaked user data, contracts, and other company documents that show the sale of this data is both highly sensitive and is in many cases supposed to remain confidential between the company selling the data and the clients purchasing it.

The documents, from a subsidiary of the antivirus giant Avast called Jumpshot, shine new light on the secretive sale and supply chain of peoples' internet browsing histories. They show that the Avast antivirus program installed on a person's computer collects data, and that Jumpshot repackages it into various different products that are then sold to many of the largest companies in the world. Some past, present, and potential clients include Google, Yelp, Microsoft, McKinsey, Pepsi, Home Depot, Condé Nast, Intuit, and many others. Some clients paid millions of dollars for products that include a so-called "All Clicks Feed," which can track user behavior, clicks, and movement across websites in highly precise detail.

Avast claims to have more than 435 million active users per month, and Jumpshot says it has data from 100 million devices. Avast collects data from users that opt-in and then provides that to Jumpshot, but multiple Avast users told Motherboard they were not aware Avast sold browsing data, raising questions about how informed that consent is.

The data obtained by Motherboard and PCMag 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. 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.

Do you know about any other companies selling data? We'd love to hear from you. Using a non-work phone or computer, you can contact Joseph Cox securely on Signal on +44 20 8133 5190, Wickr on josephcox, OTR chat on jfcox@jabber.ccc.de, or email joseph.cox@vice.com.

Although the data does not include personal information such as users' names, it still contains a wealth of specific browsing data, and experts say it could be possible to deanonymize certain users.

In a press release from July, Jumpshot claims to be "the only company that unlocks walled garden data" and seeks to "provide marketers with deeper visibility into the entire online customer journey." Jumpshot has previously discussed some of its clients publicly. But other companies mentioned in Jumpshot documents include Expedia, IBM, Intuit, which makes TurboTax, Loreal, and Home Depot. Employees are instructed not to talk publicly about Jumpshot's relationships with these companies.

"It's very granular, and it's great data for these companies, because it's down to the device level with a timestamp," the source said, referring to the specificity and sensitivity of the data being sold. Motherboard granted the source anonymity to speak more candidly about Jumpshot's processes.

Until recently, Avast was collecting the browsing data of its customers who had installed the company's browser plugin, which is designed to warn users of suspicious websites. Security researcher and AdBlock Plus creator Wladimir Palant published a blog post in October showing that Avast harvest user data with that plugin. Shortly after, browser makers Mozilla, Opera, and Google removed Avast's and subsidiary AVG's extensions from their respective browser extension stores. Avast had previously explained this data collection and sharing in a blog and forum post in 2015. Avast has since stopped sending browsing data collected by these extensions to Jumpshot, Avast said in a statement to Motherboard and PCMag.
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An infographic showing the supply chain of browsing data from Avast through to Jumpshot's clients. Image: Motherboard

However, the data collection is ongoing, the source and documents indicate. Instead of harvesting information through software attached to the browser, Avast is doing it through the anti-virus software itself. Last week, months after it was spotted using its browser extensions to send data to Jumpshot, Avast began asking its existing free antivirus consumers to opt-in to data collection, according to an internal document.

"If they opt-in, that device becomes part of the Jumpshot Panel and all browser-based internet activity will be reported to Jumpshot," an internal product handbook reads. "What URLs did these devices visit, in what order and when?" it adds, summarising what questions the product may be able to answer.

Senator Ron Wyden, who in December asked Avast why it was selling users' browsing data, said in a statement, "It is encouraging that Avast has ended some of its most troubling practices after engaging constructively with my office. However I’m concerned that Avast has not yet committed to deleting user data that was collected and shared without the opt-in consent of its users, or to end the sale of sensitive internet browsing data. The only responsible course of action is to be fully transparent with customers going forward, and to purge data that was collected under suspect conditions in the past."

Despite Avast currently asking users to opt back into the data collection via a pop-up in the antivirus software, multiple Avast users said they did not know that Avast was selling browsing data.

"I was not aware of this," Keith, a user of the free Avast antivirus product who only provided their first name, told Motherboard. "That sounds scary. I usually say no to data tracking," they said, adding that they haven't yet seen the new opt-in pop-up from Avast.

"Did not know that they did that :(," another free Avast antivirus user said in a Twitter direct message.

Motherboard and PCMag contacted over two dozen companies mentioned in internal documents. Only a handful responded to questions asking what they do with data based on the browsing history of Avast users.

"We sometimes use information from third-party providers to help improve our business, products and services. We require these providers to have the appropriate rights to share this information with us. In this case, we receive anonymized audience data, which cannot be used to identify individual customers," a Home Depot spokesperson wrote in an emailed statement.

Microsoft declined to comment on the specifics of why it purchased products from Jumpshot, but said that it doesn't have a current relationship with the company. A Yelp spokesperson wrote in an email, "In 2018, as part of a request for information by antitrust authorities, Yelp's policy team was asked to estimate the impact of Google’s anticompetitive behavior on the local search marketplace. Jumpshot was engaged on a one-time basis to generate a report of anonymized, high-level trend data which validated other estimates of Google’s siphoning of traffic from the web. No PII was requested or accessed."

"Every search. Every click. Every buy. On every site."

Southwest Airlines said it had discussions with Jumpshot but didn't reach an agreement with the company. IBM said it did not have a record of being a client, and Altria said it is not working with Jumpshot, although didn't specify if it did so previously. Sephora said it has not worked with Jumpshot. Google did not respond to a request for comment.

On its website and in press releases, Jumpshot names Pepsi, and consulting giants Bain & Company and McKinsey as clients.

As well as Expedia, Intuit, and Loreal, other companies which are not already mentioned in public Jumpshot announcements include coffee company Keurig, YouTube promotion service vidIQ, and consumer insights firm Hitwise. None of those companies responded to a request for comment.

On its website, Jumpshot lists some previous case studies for using its browsing data. Magazine and digital media giant Condé Nast, for example, used Jumpshot's products to see whether the media company's advertisements resulted in more purchases on Amazon and elsewhere. Condé Nast did not respond to a request for comment.

ALL THE CLICKS

Jumpshot sells a variety of different products based on data collected by Avast's antivirus software installed on users' computers. Clients in the institutional finance sector often buy a feed of the top 10,000 domains that Avast users are visiting to try and spot trends, the product handbook reads.

Another Jumpshot product is the company's so-called "All Click Feed." It allows a client to buy information on all of the clicks Jumpshot has seen on a particular domain, like Amazon.com, Walmart.com, Target.com, BestBuy.com, or Ebay.com.

In a tweet sent last month intended to entice new clients, Jumpshot noted that it collects "Every search. Every click. Every buy. On every site" [emphasis Jumpshot's.]

Jumpshot's data could show how someone with Avast antivirus installed on their computer searched for a product on Google, clicked on a link that went to Amazon, and then maybe added an item to their cart on a different website, before finally buying a product, the source who provided the documents explained.


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