Serves them right! The spying on people via Avast Antivirus back in 2019 was even worse than I thought. It's time to pay up, saying sorry isn't enough! https://nltimes.nl/2023/07/07/class-action-lawsuit-antivirus-firm-selling-data-millions-dutch-people
I don't understand why people are surprised. If large, complicated, commercial program is free, you are the product.
I do wonder how people who want to take part in this lawsuit can proof that they were actually using Avast Free around 2019, I believe this might be a problem. And Avast will probably point to other AV companies who are also spying on people LOL.
Depending on how many people enroll in the lawsuit, one can expect to get maybe 10-20 USD. But still it adds up and will sting Avast in the wallet for sure if it loses. The argument that others did this too is valid but to me, it's a matter of degree. I wonder if Norton/Lifelock will pay or will it come out of Avast's own coffers. I am part of a class action lawsuit against my ISP. Nickel and diming bogus little "charges" in the monthly bill for "enhancements" we don't use and don't even know anything about. I tell you: the world is full of crooks.
OK cool, 10 to 20 euro is not that much. I never actually used Avast though, but I hope they will have to pay up. These companies should be hold accountable, especially when you look at the latest report about data transmission by AV's. Most of them are still quite shady, including Win Defender.
Well the net amt. is contingent on how many litigants there are plus the settlement (less the legal fees). As for antivirus, I haven't seen much of any "dirt" on any of them lately. If data gathering is for the purpose of improving the product, well go ahead as far as I'm concerned. I think the Avast scandal kind of made everyone take a step or two back and clean their own backyards if they wanna stay out of the hostile media light themselves. Not only AVs but now Intel's Arc driver (for gpu) has telemetry enabled by default. Even greedy NVIDIA stopped with that telemetry container stuff several years ago.
To be honest, I still don't trust most of the AV's both free and paid, who knows what files they are uploading to the cloud. That's why I actually stopped using AV's for 15+ years. And yes, I read about the Intel ARC driver, it's disgusting. Why does it need to record what websites you visit? This hasn't got anything to do with improving the product.
