Monthly Archives: February 2020

Google is making changes to their Terms Of Service, which become effective 31 March 2020. Within these changes, it has been stated that UK citizen data will be moved to the US – under the control of their US entity, Google LLC – moving it away from the Northern Ireland (ie UK-based) territory where it is currently stored.

This decision is in light of Brexit as the UK will no longer be part of the EU. User data will now be stored in the US, which has been criticised by privacy activists, querying the legal integrity,security, and safety of the data stored.

Google will be moving all account data over to the US, including paid G Suite accounts. However, higher tier G Suite paid Business and Enterprise plans can elect to choose where their data is stored – see here for more information. It is also announced that soon similar changes will be made to the Terms Of Service for YouTube, YouTube Paid Services and Google Play. Privacy settings can be reviewed and managed via Google Accounts at accounts.google.com.

Jumbo’s (a privacy settings management app) creator, Pierre Valade, stated “Privacy is something that people want, but at the same time it just takes too much time for you and me to act on it”. Jumbo limits the amount of time that Google stores your search results and other behavioural data, and also works on Twitter, Facebook and Amazon’s Alexa. However, this does not solve the issue of Google moving the data for their core services such as Gmail and Drive to the US.

Although not necessarily wanted, it is legal for Google to move such user data to the US. Google has responded to fears, claiming they (Google LLC) would be subject to the same restrictions under GDPR regardless of whether UK user data is in the UK or the US. And therefore there will be no changes in data protection standards.
You can read Google’s full documentation on the upcoming changes here: policies.google.com/terms/changes

Vaio laptops were locked into a Japanese-only market for four years. Now they are available in the European market again, with a range of business-focused devices.

Sony previously hit the market with Vaio laptops, which were considered fantastic high-end laptops, known for their quality, reliability and performance. Despite the success, in 2014 Sony decided to take Vaio devices off the market. However, Vaio had not been completely eliminated. After Sony took Vaio laptops off the shelves, the engineers and product managers, responsible for Vaio within Sony, purchased the brand rights and established it as an independent company separate to the Sony conglomerate. Vaio was then taken to Japan and sold off to Japan Industrial Partners.

A review has scored the new Vaio SX14 97% for performance, which is ahead of the Dell XPS 13, and the Microsoft’s Surface Book 2. Vaio laptops have an attractive and professional look, although a review of the SX14 claimed “the device felt too flimsy and flexible”. Another downfall is that the display is not up to scratch for any graphics professionals – the screen covers 86% of the sRGB colour gamut, which isn’t terrible but it is arguably not good enough for professional photo or video editing.

A positive is the portability of the new Vaio laptops, weighing just 1kg. A further upside is that the SX14 is fully accessible, meaning that all internal components can be easily accessed and thus arguably repaired and replaced. Adding to this, the new Vaio laptops come with good connectivity including three USB ports, a USB-C port and an HDMI port, (a very handy addition).

The new Vaio laptops have the option for Intel Core i7-8565U processors and a max 16GB of RAM, which is a very decent good spec for current-gen laptops. However, for this, there is a high price of over £2,000. Pricing for the new Vaio laptops are currently set between Read More

The internet security software provider, Avast!, sold hundreds of millions of people’s highly sensitive and personal web browsing data through a subsidiary company, Jumpshot.

Avast! has a huge number of 435 million active users per month, of which Jumpshot has data from 100 million devices. Avast! have free and paid products, which partly explains their large user base, and many free users have stated that they were unaware of their data being sold and had not agreed to this. It is likely that the Avast! free product was subsidised by or founded on (or both!) monetising user data in this way

An investigation by Motherboard and PCMag found that Avast! – via Jumpshot – sold personal data to many of the world’s biggest companies such as Google, Yelp, Microsoft, McKinsey, Pepsi and Home Depot. It was revealed that the Avast! software installed on users’ computers collects data, and that Jumpshot repackages it into various different products that are then sold on. It was shown that some clients paid millions of dollars for data that included a “All Clicks Feed,” which tracks user movement across all their browsing in precise detail.

In many cases, this data was to remain confidential between the company selling and the clients purchasing. Employees from companies including Expedia, IBM, Intuit, Loreal, and Home Depot, for example, were instructed not to talk publicly about their involvement. Microsoft declined to comment on the specifics of why it purchased such data, and stated that it doesn’t have a current relationship with Jumpshot.

The data obtained through the investigation shows that specific information, such as Google searches, lookups of locations, LinkedIn page visits, particular YouTube videos, and websites visited were shared. From the collected data, it is possible to determine what date and time a user visited sites, and in some cases what search term they entered into these sites.

Avast! first collected user data through a browser plugin which was they said was intended to “warn users of suspicious websites”. When this was previously exposed, browser makers Google, Mozilla and Opera removed Avast!’s browser extensions. After this, Avast! stopped collecting data through browser plugins but instead began to collect data through their core software itself.

Since this investigation was published, just last week, Avast! began asking its existing users to opt-in to data collection, despite most being completely unaware their data was being collected previously.

The investigation has had a significant impact, which Avast! seems to have recognised. Avast! has published that their relationship with Jumpshot and data collection will be terminated with immediate effect. However, it is clear Avast! was abusing customer data and privacy without their knowledge.

Despite their response, we recommend that you cease using all Avast! software, even if you have a paid license.

This is a good example of a company providing a seemingly beneficial service and/or piece of software that is in fact masquerading to do something else. As with many things online, if it seems too good to be true then it very likely is too good to be true!