this post was submitted on 12 Mar 2024
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Avast, the cybersecurity software company, is facing a $16.5 million fine after it was caught storing and selling customer information without their consent. The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) announced the fine on Thursday and said that it’s banning Avast from selling user data for advertising purposes.

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[–] dangblingus@lemmy.dbzer0.com 80 points 1 year ago (13 children)

If the software is free, but not open source, it's harvesting your data. How else do you think these companies stay in business?

[–] CustodialTeapot@lemmy.world 20 points 1 year ago (3 children)

I dislike this sentiment. Just because something is FOSS or open source, doesn't mean it's not harvesting your data or doing something nefarious.

[–] Contend6248@feddit.de 12 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

A good example would be Yuzu (the Switch emulator), it was open source and collected so much telemetry that Nintendo might go after their users.

This might be fear tactic but it shows you that you aren't safe

[–] Chocrates@lemmy.world 3 points 1 year ago

I don't know about Yuzu's data collection but they were destroyed because they existed.

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