Antivirus software giant Avast has scrapped a subsidiary that was exposed in a bombshell report for harvesting and selling millions of users’ private web browsing histories.
The British company on Thursday announced it was getting rid of Jumpshot, its subsidiary that collects “highly sensitive” information on users’ internet use and sells the anonymized data to big companies like Google, Pepsi and Home Depot.
A Tuesday report revealed that Jumpshot tracked users on sites ranging from Amazon to Pornhub, and could even tell a company what time a user visited a porn site as well as what they searched.
In a written statement, Avast chief executive Ondrej Vlcek said that though the company’s “core mission is to keep people around the world safe and secure,” he realized that the Jumpshot revelations had “hurt the feelings of many of you, and rightfully raised a number of questions — including the fundamental question of trust.”
As a result, Vlcek and Avast’s board of directors elected to “terminate the Jumpshot data collection and wind down Jumpshot’s operations, with immediate effect.”
The shuttering of Jumpshot will result in the loss of “hundreds” of jobs for Jumpshot employees, Vlcek said, adding that “it is absolutely the right thing to do.”
San Francisco-headquartered Jumpshot has five global offices and is led by a team of six, headed by Deren Baker.
Shares of Avast were down 30 percent on Britain’s midcap index since the scandal broke, including a 12 percent drop Thursday.


