Hello Juraj. Thank you very much for taking the time to communicate your concern. My name is Shawn, and I am writing on behalf of the AVG senior support team.
This reported concern was shared with our development team, and is a confirmed bug. This issue is regarded as a high priority, and will be fixed in the next released product (version 19.5). We are doing our best to release it as soon as possible. In the interim, I appreciate your continued patience.
Regards, Shawn
Hello Juraj.
Thank you for reaching us here.
We take pride in assuring that every query from our customers will be answered on this forums.
Regarding the "Allow usage data to be shared with 3rd parties for analytics" checkbox being ticked after a Mac reboot, it isn't expected behavior. Please accept our sincere apologies for the inconvenience caused.
This could be an user interface issue, please uninstall and reinstall AVG AntiVirus on your Mac to verify this issue.
Following the AVG/Avast scandal about AVG tracking users and selling user data, I went to my AVG AntiVirus for Mac and turned off the misleading permission to "Allow usage data to be shared with 3rd parties for analytics" checkbox. (In case you don't know - if you read the Terms of Use, what you are allowing AVG to do if you have this checked, is for them to collect and sell your "Every search. Every click. Every buy. On every site." (in their own words from the sales pitch to data buyers).
I already unchecked this box DOZENS of times. Every time I restart my Mac, it is CHECKED again.
Is AVG looking for the next scandal? This is ILLEGAL. Accident? Unintentional bug? Based on selling our data having been such a cash cow for AVG, I don't think so. This is the ONLY setting that keeps chancing by itself on restart.
I think that users need to be aware of this and AVG needs to fix this - it is actually a legal matter and even if it wasn't, it's just basic respect for your users.
I am monitoring this to see if AVG allows this post (it is nothing but facts) and actually fixes this, or they bury it and pretend to be innocent. If this post doesn't get approved here, I will post this on other forums, outside AVG's control to force transparency and honesty about this.
I think users had enough of sleazy corporations talking the talk but not walking the walk. If any of that press release rhetoric after AVG's user data selling scandal was genuine, then they will allow this post, acknowledge that it is WRONG to collect the data of a user who explicitly opted out of data such collection, and fix this QUICKLY.
If this post somehow "disappears", I will post it elsewhere, along with that fact. It's time we call out illegal abuse and disrespect for privacy and user choices, and stop supporting and condoning this kind of behavior in corporations that think they can do anything with OUR PRIVATE DATA, as long as they can get away with it.
I uninstalled AVG, restarted and then reinstalled AVG. You can see the result in this video, with the latest version of AVG, just downloaded from your website minutes ago:
Video: AVG antivirus forcing opt-in to data harvesting (https://www.dropbox.com/s/8m3pl5v7oybra7w/AVG.mp4?dl=0)
Bottom line: it seems like this is NOT a bug, it's a feature. It is still this way at this very moment. You are illegally harvesting user data from your users who specifically opted out of it.
Hello Juraj.
Thank you for reaching us here.
We take pride in assuring that every query from our customers will be answered on this forums.
Regarding the "Allow usage data to be shared with 3rd parties for analytics" checkbox being ticked after a Mac reboot, it isn't expected behavior. Please accept our sincere apologies for the inconvenience caused.
This could be an user interface issue, please uninstall and reinstall AVG AntiVirus on your Mac to verify this issue.
Hello Juraj. Thank you very much for taking the time to communicate your concern. My name is Shawn, and I am writing on behalf of the AVG senior support team.
This reported concern was shared with our development team, and is a confirmed bug. This issue is regarded as a high priority, and will be fixed in the next released product (version 19.5). We are doing our best to release it as soon as possible. In the interim, I appreciate your continued patience.
Regards, Shawn