Avast, a maker of anti-virus software, has been selling users’ data to companies such as Google, Microsoft, IBM, Home Depot, sometimes for millions of dollars, a joint investigation by Vice and PCMag found. The harvesting of data is reportedly done by the Avast anti-virus software itself. Avast scraped data from users’ computer, and it handed it over to its subsidiary Jumpshot, which then repackaged the data before selling it to other companies, the investigation revealed. It said that while Avast required users to opt-in to the data sharing exercise, several users were unaware that Jumpshot was selling it to other companies. Information in the database: The data being sold by Jumpshot, includes Google searches, Google Maps location searches, activity on companies' LinkedIn pages, YouTube video visits and data on people visiting porn websites, Vice reported. It is also possible to…
