avast, one of the most popular antivirus companies with more than 435 million users, has apologized for potentially "hurting the feelings" of its customers after it was found to have its hand in the privacy cookie jar. [avast's core mission is to keep people around the world safe and secure, and we understand that the recent news about Jumpshot has hurt many of your feelings and, understandably, raised many questions, including the fundamental issue of trust. Ondrej Vlcek, CEO of avast, stated in a blog post.

The apology relates to a joint report by Motherboard and PCMag highlighting the "secret sale" of Internet browsing history and extensive click tracking to a subsidiary called Jumpshot.

Online tracking is, of course, quite widespread and underpins the whole concept of targeted advertising. In this case, the report raises the issue of the level of data collection that took place, how private the data collected actually was, and the extent to which avast users were aware that they were being extensively tracked.

The report cited industry experts to argue that it is possible to de-anonymize data. Doing so could reveal the dates and times of visits to particular websites, browsing and purchasing habits, and which videos containing pornographic content were viewed.

This was done on an opt-in basis, but the report claims that the agreement does not reveal the full extent of the tracking.

In addition, avast began collecting such data through its free antivirus software after Google, Opera, and Mozilla shut down avast and its subsidiary AVG's browser extensions.

"Protecting people is avast's top priority and must be integrated into everything we do in our business and products. Anything contrary to this will not be tolerated. For these reasons, I have decided with the Board of Directors to terminate Jumpshot's data collection and cease operations of Jumpshot immediately.

While this is absolutely the right decision, whether users will realize avast's integrity is another matter. avast launched Jumpshot in 2015, Vlcek said, to extend the company's data analysis capabilities beyond its core security and to "collect data from countless other companies that were He explains that it was to do this "more securely than the others. Later, however, he claims that when he became CEO of avast, he decided that data collection was not something he wanted to pursue.

"When I became CEO of avast seven months ago, I spent a lot of time reevaluating every part of the business. During this process, I came to the conclusion that the data collection business was not consistent with our privacy priorities for 2020 and beyond. I knew that avast's sole purpose was to make the world a safer place and that ultimately everything in the company needed to align with that North Star.

To be fair, Jumpshot's founding predated Vlcek's hiring by several years. However, the browser extension shenanigans and ongoing data mining were conducted under his watch until a joint report shed an unflattering light on the situation.

Jumpshot operated as an independent company with its own management team and board of directors, but it is not clear how many people worked at Jumpshot and would therefore be affected by its closure.