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.

  • Kinglink@lemmy.world
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    8 months ago

    Jesus Christ.

    Remember when Google’s Motto was “Don’t be Evil” It was supposed to be a jab at Microsoft, but it feels like every year tech companies find news ways to just be fucking evil.

    PS. Google kind of fails to live up to that motto too, I don’t even know if it’s still an official motto.

    • redcalcium@lemmy.institute
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      8 months ago

      Google execs knew this motto will just get in the way of maximizing profits for shareholders, so they dropped it a few years ago.

      • The Octonaut@mander.xyz
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        8 months ago

        No, they didn’t. Alphabet was created as a parent company in 2015 and uses the similarly vague “Do the right thing” in their code of conduct. Google itself still has “Don’t be evil” in their code of conduct, unchanged. Google needed Alphabet to not be Google (or they’d get fined to hell) so having everything identical wouldn’t have been a smart idea.

        That this easily Google-able myth is so pervasive is a wonderful microcosm about online gullibility and laziness.

    • Imgonnatrythis@sh.itjust.works
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      8 months ago

      Kind of? They would happily sell your mother heroine and auction off her house. They fail at not being evil like Antarctica fails at being hospitable to palm trees.

    • MiDaBa@lemmy.ml
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      8 months ago

      I’m all for crapping on large publicly traded companies but lumping Google in with companies that sell your data isn’t honest. Google does not and never has sold user data. They sure as hell use your data for their own ad network but they do not sell that data wholesale. Meta and other data brokers sell your data and this Avast company sells your data through a product they claimed stopped tracking. I’m not pro-Google but to compare their business model (which is very transparent about how it handles your data and how it’s never sold) to Avast’s business model (which is to completely lie to the end user while literally selling everything that user does) is not an honest comparison.