Avira (“we,” “us,” “our,” or “Avira”) strives to protect your privacy at all times. We are a leading expert in the IT security field. We protect you against malware, viruses and other digital threats. One of the things that matters most to us is protecting your personal data. If you live in the United States or Canada, Avira means Avira, Inc., 330 Primrose Avenue, Suite 610, Burlingame, CA 94010, USA. If you live somewhere else, Avira means Avira Operations GmbH & Co. KG, Kaplaneiweg 1, 88069 Tettnang, Germany.

Please read this policy carefully and make sure you understand it. This policy describes how we treat certain information about you, your computer or mobile device (“Device”). This information may include something called personally identifiable information (“PII”). Some examples of PII are your name, address, phone number, email address and credit card information. Some of the information we use about your Device includes its identification number, IP address, location, contents, language settings and IMEI code. We may also use the Device brand, model, battery level, hardware model, operating system version, telephone number, SIM number, network provider and memory status. Finally, we may use some geographical information based on the GPS/Wi-Fi network position.

We will also explain how we use Cookies (as described in more detail and defined below) and analytics tools on our website and in our products and services. We comply with relevant privacy laws and this privacy policy. We only share data with others as described in this policy.

Products and Services

Avira Protection Cloud, Avira URL Cloud and Avira ProActiv

Avira has included the Protection Cloud, URL Cloud and Avira ProActiv (“ProActiv”) features into its products to further protect you from threats. These features allow us to analyze new or unknown programs from potentially hazardous sources in real time. We use these features only to provide you with the best possible Avira products and services. When these features are enabled, our products use certain pre-determined rules to see whether an event on your system is caused by a virus or malware attack. Once we figure this out, we can begin working on a “cure.” We may do this by sending a "digital fingerprint" of an unknown or suspicious executable file from your system to us in real time. In most cases, our analysis can immediately label the file as either clean or malware. Under certain circumstances it may be necessary to transmit the executable file to Avira for further analysis. In this event, files are exchanged between your computer/Device and the Protection Cloud in encrypted form. No personal files (formats such as .pdf, .doc and .xls) or personal documents (such as photos and videos) are transferred. Data is only used for malware analysis and is not forwarded to third parties. Refer to our Protection Cloud site and our ProActiv site for more details. Our URL Cloud feature helps identify URLs that are harmful to your system when you are browsing the web. URL Cloud is able to analyze the URLs you visit and determine which URLs may be malware, spam and/or phishing and warn you about such URLs before you proceed. In order for the URL Cloud feature to work, we must interact with the sites you use. However, we remove any PII. We store certain information regarding the URLs in an anonymized manner and use it for debugging, statistical purposes and to improve our detection rates.

Your Avira Account

In order to activate and/or use some of our products or services, you will need to create an account (“Account”). During the process of setting up your Account, we will ask you for certain PII such as your email address. We need this information to allow you to activate, manage or use your Avira products and services. We may associate your email address and other PII (such as name, telephone number and address) with your Account and access of our products or services. For further information, please see the User Experience and Statistics section below.

Facebook Connect and Google+ Sign-In

For some web-based services or functions of our products and services (for example, the login via https://my.avira.com) we offer a log in via Facebook Connect or Google+ Sign-In. Facebook Connect is a service of Facebook, Inc. (“Facebook”) and Google+ Sign-In is a service of Google, Inc. (“Google”). If you use Facebook Connect or Google + Sign-In, we process and store the data you transmit only for registration purposes. The use of Facebook Connect or Google+ Sign-In is subject to the respective Facebook and/or Google privacy policies and terms of use. When using Facebook Connect, your Facebook profile and public data available on Facebook will be transferred from Facebook to Avira. When using Google+ Sign-In, your Google+ login information data (which may contain PII such as your name, email address, phone and other information you have entered as part of your Google+ profile) will be transferred from Google to Avira. To find out more information about Facebook Connect, please click here and/or review the Facebook Connect login pop-up. To obtain more information about Google+ Sign-In and how to manage your Google+ access rights, please click here.

If you do not agree to such a data transfer, please use your Avira Account as a login instead of Facebook Connect and/or Google+ Sign-In.

Inviting others to use our products or services

You can invite a friend or family member to try some of our products and services via email, Facebook, Twitter or Google+.  To use the email invite feature, you will have to enter your friend or family member’s email address (which is PII). Avira will then send your invitation to the email address you provide. This email invitation will contain your PII (including your name and the email address you entered into your Account). Please do not do this without getting consent from your friends and family members. If you choose to share the invitation via Facebook, Twitter or Google+, you will need to log in to each service. We will interface with the respective API in order to share a link inviting your friend or family member to try our products and services.

Manage a family member or friend´s device through the Avira dashboard

Some of our products and services (such as https://my.avira.com) offer a feature allowing you to invite your friends or family members to have you monitor and/or manage their devices through your Avira dashboard. You will be able to monitor and/or manage your friends’ and family members’ devices once such individuals accept the invitation you send through the dashboard. In order for these products and services to work, you may need to access some third-party tools (“Third Party Tools”). Avira assumes no responsibility whatsoever for your use of such Third Party Tools. Furthermore, such Third Party Tools may be subject to special licenses, terms and/or conditions. By accessing and/or using such Third Party Tools, you agree to abide by any and all relevant licenses, terms and/or conditions associated with such Third Party Tools. For example, we currently partner with TeamViewer for the remote access product. This product is governed by TeamViewer’s privacy policy. If you have any questions regarding TeamViewer’s privacy policy, please email the company at privacy@teamviewer.com.   

Once your friend or family member installs our product or service, you will see the individual within your dashboard. You may then have access to each person’s account information including: name and email address, photo (if it is uploaded), type of device used, the products or services the individual installed and the status of each device, including whether there are any security issues (e.g. a virus). In the event of a security issue, you will be able to contact your friend or family member with relevant information by sending a message via your dashboard. Both you and your friend or family member can choose to remove their device(s) from your dashboard at any time and your friend or family member’s device(s) will no longer be visible in your dashboard.

If you allow someone to monitor and/or manage your device(s) via the Avira dashboard, you expressly agree to grant them access to your device(s) in the manner described above.

Applications on mobile devices

We need to access the location data of your Device in order for some of our features to work.

The Avira Identity Guard product accesses the contacts in your address book. This feature informs you if someone’s information is part of an external data breach. We can only use your address book if you give us permission. Every time you use Avira Identity Guard, we check the information in your address book against a database of known email addresses that have been breached. If we find a match, we will inform you and give you the option to pass this information on to a particular contact. We store certain logs (which may include PII) on our servers that run the Avira Identity Guard product. Such logs are rotated regularly, which means the information is only stored for a short amount of time and is then discarded.

The Avira Anti-Theft product uses your location and other information about your Android phone so that we can locate it if you misplace it or it is stolen. We also use other PII like your email address and Avira Account login in order for this feature to work properly.

Website

You can visit most areas of the Avira website without disclosing any personal information. Avira only logs the domain name, IP address and browser type of our website visitors via our web server log files and analytics tools at irregular intervals. We use this information to log global access to our website.

For certain features we will ask that you provide Avira certain information so that it works properly. You can decide at any time whether you would like to continue with an instruction prompting you to provide PII. In some cases, you will be unable to complete a particular step in the process if you do not want to provide the information requested. For example, we will ask for PII in the following instances:

• If you place an order through our online store, we will ask you to provide information required for processing the order. This may include your name, address, email address, and credit card number or bank details.
• If you use our online technical support or ask questions about our products and services using the contact form or the contact options on our website, we will ask you to give us PII required for processing the support request. This can include your email address, name and address, as well as information about your computer hardware and software and the type of problem you have.
• If you have requested a test license on our website, in order to activate such license, you may have to provide PII, such as an email address.
• If you request a service from us via our website.
• If you participate in a survey on our website.
• If you subscribe to a newsletter. If you signed up for a newsletter and no longer want to receive it, you can unsubscribe at any time by using the unsubscribe option provided in the email or by sending us an email using the contact information provided below.

Use of Cookies

Cookies are small text files that are stored on your computer or in your browser. Cookies are loaded on your browser when you first use a product or service. Cookies do not include any PII. We may use cookies to identify the browser you are using so that our website displays properly. We also use cookies in various places on our website in order to document your visit to the Avira website and allow for a more efficient website design. For example, to optimize the shopping cart feature used for ordering in the Avira online store. If you do not want to allow Avira or someone else to use cookies, you can disable cookie installation via your browser setting. While you also have the option of deleting cookies from your computer's hard disk at any time, if you choose to do so, you may be unable to use some of the features of our website, products and services.

Avira’s Safe Search

We currently host our own search via https://safesearch.avira.com or search.avira.net. If you use this product we collect the browser and operating system you use to conduct the search, your IP address and the type of search conducted. We may aggregate certain data on how you perform your search such as the number of web searches made in a particular day or in a particular region. We will not share any PII or non-pseudonymized data we collected with any third parties. This search is hosted and stored on Avira’s servers; however we use third parties in order to provide you the search results and such third-party providers may collect PII as fully described below.

User Experience and Statistics

We use our own technology (including soft authentication systems, storage and messaging engines, databases and big data repositories) to perform statistical evaluations using pseudonymized user profiles. We do this to optimize your experience with our products and provide relevant content and advertisements. If you utilize multiple email addresses to access your Avira Account, we may tie those emails to one profile. We may combine information we gather about your use of one product or service with your use of another product or service.

We also use the information we collect to offer you content, search results and advertisements that will be of most interest to you. We believe more relevant advertising provides a better Internet experience. This is also how we support our business while still providing certain products or services to you free of charge. As part of this process, we may collect information about how you use and interact with the advertisements that we offer. We may also use information about how you use our products and services across various Devices. Based on this Device-specific information (for example, the hardware model, operating system, version, device, mobile network information including your phone number) and the unique application number assigned to some of our products and services, we may be able to compile a personal profile about you.

When you log in and access your Account or our products, we may automatically collect and store certain information. For example, details of how you use our products, what kind of search queries you conduct, where your computer is routing from, your browser type and version, and Cookies that may identify your browser and/or Account. By reviewing and accepting this privacy policy, you understand and agree that we may combine  non-PII or pseudonymized data obtained via our proprietary soft authentication systems with PII obtained when you sign up for an Avira Account. We do not share this combined data with third parties.

In addition to our own proprietary technology, we use the following third-party analytics tools to better understand your interaction with our website and use of our products/services. Our ultimate goal is to create a more user-friendly experience for you:

1. Adobe Analytics (Omniture)

We use Adobe Analytics software from Adobe Systems, Inc. ("Adobe"). It uses Cookies and tracking pixels either stored or retrieved from your computer/device and also makes it possible to analyze your use of our website. This process collects and saves data that we use to create use profiles based on pseudonyms. These profiles are used to analyze visitor behavior and improve our offerings and design based on user needs. Without your expressly granted and formal consent, use profiles based on pseudonyms are not merged with personally identifiable information that we may have received from you in a different context. Adobe does not process your IP address and only saves it in truncated form. Adobe transfers the information collected within the European Union and stores it on its European Union servers. At any time, you can opt out of Adobe collecting and storing your data by following the instructions in the link below:

·         Opt out here

More information about Adobe System’s privacy policy and its data privacy policies is available here.

2. Google Analytics

We use Google Analytics, a web analysis service from Google, Inc. ("Google"). Google Analytics uses Cookies to make it possible to analyze your use of our website. Information about your use of our website the Cookie generates is usually transferred to a Google server in the USA and saved there. However, before this happens, Google shortens and anonymizes your IP address (Google's anonymizeIp process) if located within a member state of the European Union or in other contracting member states to the Agreement on the European Economic Area. The entire IP address is transferred to a Google server in the USA and saved there only in exceptional cases. This anonymization ensures that your IP address cannot be traced back to you. Google will use this information to evaluate your use of the website in order to compile reports about website activities for Avira and provide additional services associated with website and Internet usage. Google can transfer this information to third parties, where appropriate, if legally mandated or if Google contracts with third parties to process such data. Google will not associate your IP address with other Google data. By using our website, you expressly consent to Google’s collection and storage of your data in the manner and for the purposes described above.

You also have the option to prevent Google from acquiring and processing data generated by Cookies and data related to your use of our website (including your IP address) by downloading and installing a Google-provided browser plugin.

More information about Google Analytics can be found here.

3. CrazyEgg

We use the CrazyEgg tool, a web analysis service from Crazy Egg, Inc. ("CrazyEgg"). CrazyEgg uses Cookies to analyze your use of our website. This process collects and saves data that we use to create use profiles based on pseudonyms. These profiles are used to analyze visitor behavior and improve our offerings and design based on user needs. Without your expressly granted and formal consent, use profiles based on pseudonyms are not merged with personally identifiable information that we may have received from you in a different context. Information about your use of our website (including your IP address) that Cookies generate is transferred to a CrazyEgg server in the USA and stored there. CrazyEgg will use this information to compile reports about activities on and use of our website and provide additional services associated with website and Internet use.

You can opt out of CrazyEgg collecting and storing your data at any time by following the instructions in the link below:

• Opt out here

More information about the software and CrazyEgg’s privacy policy can be found here.

4. Mixpanel

We use technologies from Mixpanel, Inc. ("Mixpanel") within some of our products to perform statistical evaluations. This allows us to improve and optimize product features and make their designs more appealing.

For our Internet-security-related products, Mixpanel uses Cookies to detect your browser type, operating system, language settings, the search criteria that you enter and your IP address. Mixpanel then sends this data to a Mixpanel server in the USA. Mixpanel anonymizes your IP address and only the anonymized IP address is sent to Avira, ensuring that your privacy remains protected. If you do not want to consent to such data collection, please see our instructions for disabling Cookies in the website-related section below. Furthermore, you can opt out of Mixpanel collecting and storing such data at any time by following the instructions in the link below:

• Opt out here

More information about Mixpanel and its privacy policy can be found here.

Additional Information

Sharing information with third parties

Avira does not forward or sell PII to third parties. If we work with advertising and publishing partners, we will only share non-PII as fully explained below.

However, we may engage other companies to process data on our behalf. For example, we work together with cleverbridge AG (Brabanter Str. 2-4, 50674 Cologne, Germany) to provide you with a convenient way to order, pay for and receive our products online. With any such provider, we will only share PII if we have an appropriate data processing agreement in place. We will only transfer the minimum amount of PII we need in order for the data processing to occur. Such companies must adhere strictly to data protection legislation. They must also treat your PII confidentially and use it only for providing us the data processing services. They must not use your PII for their own business purposes. As we are a global corporation, we may store and process your personal information on a server outside the country where you live.

The search functions Avira provides (for example, https://safesearch.avira.com/ or http://avira.search.ask.com/ or search.avira.net), are provided by either APN, LLC (“Ask.com”) or Yahoo!, Inc. (“Yahoo”). If you start a search query via the search functions, both Ask.Com and Yahoo record certain information and display the search results. In order to do so, both companies determine your IP address, the source of your search, your browser and platform type and your language settings. Both companies also forward this information to third-party content providers and sponsored links. For more information and to see Ask.com’s privacy policy, please click here. For more information and to see Yahoo’s privacy policy, please click here.

If we comply with privacy laws, we may share non-PII with our advertising and publishing partners. Again, we will never share or sell PII. This may allow our partners to tailor advertisements to you. We require these partners to comply with applicable laws and this privacy policy. However, these partners may still collect data if you visit a website by clicking on an advertisement. The way they collect data may include placing Cookies on your browser. They may also review the number of times you viewed an advertisement. The partners can track your search queries, where your computer is routing from and your browser type and version. We do not have control over the types of information such partners collect and how they will, ultimately, use it. We strongly recommend that you review any partner’s privacy policy before clicking on a particular advertisement.  

A partner may request that you provide PII in order to access a certain website. In this case, your visit to the website will be governed by the partner’s own privacy policy. Again, we recommend that you review any partner’s privacy policy before providing such partner with any PII.

Finally, Avira may disclose your PII if we are required by law to provide it to governmental agencies, courts or other authorities.

Protecting PII

We have put in place lawful and industry-standard safeguards to protect your PII. For example, your credit card information is transmitted in encrypted form using the Secure Socket Layer (SSL) certificate. We do this to make sure that your PII is not lost, harmed, lost or deleted.

Anyone at Avira who has access to PII has been trained in the proper and lawful way such data should be handled.

Viewing, correcting, blocking and deleting PII

You have the right to view, correct, block or delete PII Avira stores at any time. To do so, please contact us using the contact information below.

Public information

Note that information you send to a forum, such as http://forum.avira.com/wbb/ or https://answers.avira.com, is classified as public information and is not subject to this privacy policy. When using our forums, there is a risk that others will find and use the information you submit. Be careful and handle your personal information in a responsible manner while online in a public forum.

Contact information

Please ask us if you would like information about the PII we store. We will gladly provide this for you for free as quickly as possible. We can also send this information to you electronically.

Contact us at:

Avira
Data Protection Officer
Kaplaneiweg 1
88069 Tettnang
Germany
Phone: +49 7542/500-0
Email: privacy@avira.com

Version: March 2016