(Reuters) - Cybersecurity firm Avast (L:AVST) said on Wednesday it was reviewing all options for its trend analytics service, Jumpshot, after media reports raised concerns over data privacy earlier this week that sent the company's shares tumbling.
Avast allegedly collected data on what many of its users did online and sent it to its unit, Jumpshot, which then offered to sell the information to clients, according to the media reports on Monday.
Avast denied the allegations in a blog post https://blog.avast.com/our-commitment-to-responsible-data-use?__cf_chl_jschl_tk__=d6ec1fbded62ddd61c17d18cfe321a42c5255347-1580305170-0-AS4397-9Pb9LkCIeZ2K-eaRHFm4Isp-1zDwidkqlApLSynrL-nRphaUgN1hbZfApTDP7OMOyyCGtIRt3nPV6Eiy3A84_Z29AexJ77-9YRSuygtgAx_HaDUf2gdttgbUdrILL49bzjO51LNACQVEi3O--plSKS_izHOR1VgWR-D-rsF4FgV9PlcAGfwFTbVRNMRKdkc2yFq5cUGbwRPAQ4pVYos-re6f6vSsjEcEh0NeHkHwkTGv8mWfzpxz6pULWMyiaZqONjJvY27w3sB_HektGB0xHD4MXKwE2dSAc7UL_nXP5mxc50SA7aXljo25JAAbBdr7rfFYbHTYtJitxu7P2CZ6oh6-3GECT-7qsziZrskHK8y1x_Q52TZkENbRdKg on Tuesday, saying "at no time have we sold any personally identifiable information to a third party".
Shares of Avast, which has lost about 17% of their value this week, were down more than 5% as of 1351 GMT.
Jumpshot, launched in 2015, provides marketers with trend analytics and statistics on customer purchasing habits "that was anonymized, rather than specific user targeting", according the the blog post.
"Avast is fully committed to giving customers control over their privacy and data choices," Avast said in a statement on Wednesday.
According to the blog post, those choices included permitting users' anonymous data to be used internally by Avast for product improvements and product analytics or by third parties for trend analytics.