Interesting and "telling" in the same moment

Archive
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Many many companies will tell its customers they do not sell customer data and do so openly. Avast, being owned by Norton since 2022, now has the FTC up its backside for doing just that. Browsing and other data. Lots of it too.

Reading the article Avast and Norton aren't going to fare well with this one, its purely intent. I cannot see from what I read that Avast is or was dedicated to this policy statement: " We are committed to our mission of protecting and empowering people’s digital lives". EU doesn't play games with issues like this, its past time here in the US that we start getting serious about it as well.

The U.S. Federal Trade Commission (FTC) will order Avast to pay $16.5 million and ban the company from selling the users' web browsing data or licensing it for advertising purposes.

https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/security/ftc-to-ban-avast-from-selling-browsing-data-for-advertising-purposes/

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JIMMY J:

... Norton replaced with AVAST based on above screenshot? So Norton users are paying to Norton AND Norton is using free AVAST AV in the backend?

Hi JIMMY J:

Not exactly.  Norton 360 users just have bits and pieces of technology developed by Avast on their system.

Norton and Avast are now owned by the same parent company, Gen Digital, and it appears that some of the new features added to Norton 360 in the past few years (e.g., Smart Scan, Software Updater, etc. - I don't know the exact list of features) were originally developed by Avast and then ported into Norton 360.  So Norton 360 users aren't running a full Avast antivirus product re-labelled as "Norton", but it does mean that the features offered in NortonLifeLock and Avast antivirus products are becoming more and more similar over time.

I assume that Norton 360 users are now finding Avast folders on their hard drive because the Norton 360 software developers were simply too lazy to change the folder and file names for these ported features (e.g., Smart Scan, Software Updater, etc.) from "Avast" to "Norton".

Note that this sharing of technology goes both ways.  The CCleaner disk cleaner utility that was originally developed by Piriform is now owned by Avast, and CCleaner users who have never installed a NortonLifeLock product on their computer are now finding Norton folders on their hard drive.  See the 13-Mar-2024 topic Norton folder in program data folder after updating WTF in the CCleaner forum.
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Dell Inspiron 15 5584 * 64-bit Win 10 Pro v22H2 build 19045.4412 * Firefox v126.0.1 * Microsoft Defender v4.18.24040.4-1.1.24050.5 * Malwarebytes Premium v5.1.5.116-1.0.1252 * Macrium Reflect Free v8.0.7783

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Interesting!

Norton replaced with AVAST based on above screenshot?

So Norton users are paying to Norton AND Norton is using free AVAST AV in the backend?

4

Yours, is a much longer version of my sentiments which were, the user may make their own judgements regarding what they see. I see Avast on ALL my machines in the manner posted in the screenshot. Norton 360 and NS Ultra. The reason for it being there at all is most obvious. Thanks for the post.

SA

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SoulAsylum:

Many many companies will tell its customers they do not sell customer data and do so openly. Avast, being owned by Norton since 2022, now has the FTC up its backside for doing just that. Browsing and other data. Lots of it too....

https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/security/ftc-to-ban-avast-from-sel...

Hi SoulAsylum:

That BleepingComputer article notes that Avast's Jumpshot subsidiary that collected and sold this data between 2014 and 2020 was shut down in 2020 after a joint public investigation by Motherboard and PCMag.  That's about a year before Avast and NortonLifeLock merged to create parent company Gen Digital, so I'm guessing FTC fines were an expected liability that was already built into the cost of acquiring Avast.

While I'm happy to hear that the FTC finally imposed penalties on Avast for this fraudulent behavior, macrotrends reported <here> that Gen Digital's gross profit for the 12 months ending December 12, 2023 was 3.061 billion (3,061 million), so the FTC fine of 16.5 million is about 0.5% of their annual gross profit.  As such, I have doubts that this FTC ruling will have any substantial impact on the way that NortonLifeLock conducts its business.

I listed some of the reasons why I stopped using Norton products in my 12-May-2022 reply in PC_confused's Internet Security vs 360, and I mentioned Jumpshot and my concerns about NortonLifeLock acquiring technology from companies like Avast who are known for their questionable business practices, as well as the amount of unnecessary bloat (e.g., Norton Smart Scan,  Norton Software Updater, the discontinued Norton Crypto, etc.) developed by these companies that NortonLifeLock has been incorporating into their own antivirus products.  I assume it's more profitable for Gen Digital to acquire new technology this way instead of investing that money in their own R&D department.

Interesting further is I find this on my main PC. Zero Avast products have ever been installed on this system. So the question begs, how is it there in the first place? and why!

As CeeBee's 23-Aug-2023 topic C:\Users\xxx\AppData\Local\Norton\AvastScanDump.txt shows, if you have a NortonLifeLock product on your computer then you'll likely find traces of Avast-developed technology as well.  Given the recent FTC ruling, I wouldn't be surprised to see NortonLifeLock change the company name in these files and folders from "Avast" to "Norton" to try to hide their association with Avast.

As the saying goes, "qui cum canibus concumbunt cum pulicibus surgent " (He that lieth down with dogs shall rise up with fleas).
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Dell Inspiron 5584 * 64-bit Win 10 Pro v22H2 build 19045.4046 * Firefox v123.0.0 * Microsoft Defender v4.18.23110.3-1.1.24010.10 * Malwarebytes Premium v4.6.8.311-1.0.2259 * Macrium Reflect Free v8.0.7783

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Interesting further is I find this on my main PC. Zero Avast products have ever been installed on this system. So the question begs, how is it there in the first place? and why! A bit more is here so everyone can understand what these files are used for.

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Avast on my PC.png