Wired United Kingdom has spoken with AVG and their spokesperson stated that the ability to collect search history had been in previous iterations of the policy, but with alternative wording.

At Mobile World Congress 2015, AVG CEO Gary Kovacs said in a keynote the one-page policy is an important part of increasing consumer trust in laying out just what data is collected by the technology provider and how it is used.

AVG, the Czech antivirus company, has announced a new privacy policy in which it boldly and openly admits it will collect user details and sell them to online advertisers for the goal of continuing to fund its freemium-based products. These “non-personal” info include your device’s brand, language and apps in use, among other things.

AVG claims to have more than 200 million users worldwide, which would make for a plentiful data harvest. Over on Reddit (that home of the ever calm and collected individual) there is much shaking of fist and gnashing of teeth.

“We provide products and services to help you secure your data, devices, and personal privacy”.

“We may also aggregate and/or anonymize personal data we collect about you”. The company is adamant that it doesn’t sell anything with identifying information, and the data that it does collect is anonymized and stored without anything that can link it back to you.

Some data that is considered “personal” will not be sold to third parties, but can be shared with companies that work with AVG depending on the country and laws. “AVG may share non-personal data with third parties and may publicly display aggregate or anonymous information”.

“Without privacy online, there can be no security; and without security, there can be no trust”.

Despite AVG’s good intentions, the company is catching heat from some industry experts who believe its policy goes a bit too far. AVG recently updated its privacy policy, and while it is extremely transparent in letting you know what it does, it’s also kind of alarming.

Transparent the policy certainly seems to be, and it will be up to users whether or not they accept the sale of their data in return for a free product.

You have the right to opt out of the use or collection of certain data, including personal data and non-personal data, by following the instructions here*.