The answer to the question about AV providers gathering data, as a standard has always been yes. Even as its being dismissed and denied as being done. Please note the “quote” below regarding AVG. I post it for the simple reason that, Norton purchased Avast. Along with it, they now use the Avast engine. We then know, they assumed the degradation of industry respect that came with that acquisition. Please check the scores of Norton within this independent testing. Although not good they’re not the worst. Transparency and accessibility as we are all too aware of needs improvement. To the end of what this article presents when do WE, the people who have our data stolen under the standard EULA get paid? Don’t we all know that answer!!
But not every company draws the line in the right place. AVG, which was later acquired by Avast, collected users’ browsing history and sold it to third-party advertisers. The FTC eventually banned Avast in June 2024 from selling or licensing users’ web-browsing data and fined it $16.5 million. Not exactly the kind of behavior you want from software that’s supposed to be guarding your privacy.
SA