Read it! They got to CCleaner too

AMD_man

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So, recently I noticed there is a new tab lurking around the CCleaner settings called "Privacy", which of course means your privacy stopped being important. Apparently this is because they joined the "Avast group". Naturally I clicked on it and read the "What happens to your data" article. Here are the ugly highlights:

  • How they use the data
    "We want you to understand the types of personal data we process and if we do not obtain your personal data directly from you, the source we used, and the specific data collected."
    "We collect personal data for these reasons: to process the purchase of a product or service; to provision the product or service to you; and for the legitimate interests of us." Gee, I wonder what that means...
    " In some cases, you may exercise your right to object directly, for example you may unsubscribe to email marketing messages or you may choose to turn off data use in the applicable product settings; in other cases you may notify us here: support@ccleaner.com and we will investigate the grounds relating to your particular situation." How nice of them.
  • Choice
    This is about the different purposes of the data collection and the ones you have a choice about. Here they are:
    "-Cross-product direct marketing: – when we offer you another product from a company within our group.
    -Cross-product development – when we collect data from one product and use it for the development of another product.
    -Third Party Ads – when we offer any third-party products.
    -Third party analytics – when we share your data with a third party for analytics, such as purchase optimization, crash reporting, and trend analytics. Note, all free users and paid customers can choose to turn off this feature."
  • Billing data
    On the PC
    "Your Billing Data is collected by our third-party service providers only where necessary for the purposes of processing or refunding your payments, or so that they can communicate with you. Your Billing Data may also be retained for legal reasons, for example, taxation." Not bad I guess.
    "We store your Billing Data separately from your Service Data (defined below)."
    For Mobile devices
    "Your Billing Data is collected by the third party app store and your Billing Data is not shared with us." I guess this means the Play Store and such.
    For business
    "Your Billing Data is collected by the reseller or distributor. Your Billing Data, excluding your credit card number, may be shared with us. We use the Billing Data to create a record of the software installations." A bit shady.
    "In some instances, we change resellers or distributors as we carry out our business. In that case, your Billing Data will be transferred from one reseller or distributor to another. When this happens, you will be informed of such transfer." Also ok.
    Free Products
    "You are not required to disclose Billing Data to download our free products and services for your PC and mobile device, which includes free AntiVirus, free mobile security, and free CCLeaner for desktop. However, our free CCLeaner cloud product does require you provide your name and email address to register for the product." Not bad at all.
  • Support
    They basically use your data only to solve technical issues and to identify you while they provide the support. However...
    "Information collected while providing the support will not be used for secondary purposes, other than, we may use your email address to send you information about other us products or services. If you contact us for support, we may suggest that you upgrade or update products or services. Information and data connected to provision of support will be retained by us to have a history of support requests and for support research purposes." Shady again.
  • Marketing
    "When we collect your email address, we may market our other products and services to you. You may choose to unsubscribe from future email marketing by following the instructions in the email. Generally, we do not serve third party ads in its products for the personal computer. We may serve third party ads in its free products for mobile devices." This is basically accomplished by using the methods every other app uses.
    "If you do not want to view third party ads, you may uninstall the free mobile product and/or choose an available paid version of mobile products, which do not serve third party ads." Very normal.
  • Online identifiers
    GUID
    Random unique number, unrelated to personal data.
    Cookies
    This is basically what any cookie does. There is a nice and very long list on the link that you can see if you want.
    IP Address
    "We collect your IP Address to provision your product or service. We also use the IP Address with mobile products to serve ads. We strive to replace your IP Address within sixty days of collecting it with your city and country or we hash your IP Address."
  • In-Product Messaging
    As usual, this is used for normal notifications and also to offer you stuff you don't want. Nothing strange here.
  • Service Data
    "Service Data is used primarily to provision the products or services. Service Data is also used for the compatible and legitimate uses of research, to compile statistics, analytics, aggregated reporting, product development, In-product messaging, and direct marketing. Before Service Data is used for secondary purposes, us pseudonymizes or anonymizes the Service Data.

    For all Service Data, we practice “data minimization”, which means we limit our collection and retention of your data to only what is necessary, adequate and relevant to achieve our processing purpose." How nice of them to minimize the data the keep.
    They also may collect data because "there are some products that require it to provide full functionality". Wow, I didn't know my processor needed my Credit card to work. No wonder I get low FPS. Oh, and they'll obviously also use this data for marketing purposes. I mean, they already have it, why not use it? :lol: (Of course, they will "anonymize" the data. Of course.)
    They also collect:
    -Website Log Files: AKA how you use their servers
    -Device and Network information: This one is a good one.
    "We may collect information about the computer or device you are using, our products and services running on it, and, depending on the type of device it is, what operating systems you are using, device settings, application identifiers (AI), hardware identifiers or universally unique identifiers (UUID), software identifiers, IP Address, location data, cookie IDs, and crash data (through the use of either our own analytical tools or tolls provided by third parties, such as Crashlytics or Firebase). Device and network data is connected to the installation GUID."
    "We collect information in the form of statistics through our own or third-party analytics about which apps have been installed or uninstalled, how they are used, the number of active users, and the impact apps have on device performance and battery consumption (collectively, “AppInfo”). From this we study device and network behaviour, purchasing history and trends to measure the relative success of our products over time (in other words, serve our legitimate interests)." I think this one is my favorite.
    - Analytics and Crash Reporting: They use crash reports, not only to solve bugs and such but also to "optimize and improve your user experience, as well as evaluate and improve our campaigns.". This is probably my second favorite.
    They also have a very nice list of the analytic tools they use. This include:
    * Google Analytics
    * Firebase Analytics
    * Firebase Crash Reporting
    * Fabric Crashlytics
    * AppsFlyer
    * Facebook Analytics (At least this guys will keep our data safe.)
    * HockeyApp
    * MixPanel
    * Logentries
    * Loggly
  • Account Data
    "Account data is the data you give when you open an account or request a service from us and may including your name, address, email address, phone number, photo, date of birth, gender, and interests (collectively, “Account Data”). Account Data may include the same data as in your Billing Data (such as name and email), but Account Data is not connected to your credit card number and, except in a few instances described below, is not connected to your Service Data. We process this data in order to provide you with the relevant account."

All of this stuff affects the following software:
  • CCleaner (all variants)
  • Recuva
  • Speccy
  • Defraggler
  • CCleaner Cloud
  • Avast Android, AVG Cleaner, etc.

Bottom line:

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