AVG introduced their new Privacy Policy last week. This change has been touted since March by their CEO as a new one-page Privacy Policy, that they believe should be the industry standard for transparency.
The new Privacy Policy takes effect on October 15, 2015. In the new version and with its transparency, you can see that AVG will collect non-personal information from the users of its free offerings and may sell that data in the future. Non-personal information includes browsing and search history. According to AVG, individuals will be able to opt-out of the collection of non-personal data with no loss of functionality.
Given the position of antivirus software, always running and with elevated privileges, it requires a lot of trust from the user. The behavior enabled by this new Privacy Policy is closer to spyware than software that should be protecting you from spyware. While it is understandable that a business must turn a profit, this change could be offered opt-in or with a different approach to increase the conversion rate of free users to paid users.
If you are concerned about your privacy, perhaps a paid security software is a better option. If your budget still requires ‘free’, you may check out these alternatives for home-use:
- Microsoft Security Essentials or Windows Defender (built-in with Windows 8/Windows 10) – Free for Windows
- Avast – Free for Mac or Windows
- Sophos – Free for Mac
