Welcome to Axisprerata, where we take just 10 minutes to get you smarter on the collision of tech, business, and politics.

I'm Dan from Mac. On today's show, the UK allows a controversial Chinese company to build its 5G network,

and the ERA gets closer to the Constitution.

But first, sharing your data.

So yesterday, VICE's motherboard sent the tech world a buzz with an investigation into

how antivirus software company avast sells people's internet browsing histories to big clients,

including brands possibly that include Pepsi, Google, Home Depot,

into it and more. Now, this isn't just about Home Depot possibly knowing, say, you need a new

toilet because you searched for toilets on the Home Depot website. No, this is about

Home Depot possibly knowing you need a new toilet because you searched for new toilets

elsewhere on the internet, or maybe wrote about it in a social media post,

or clicked on someone else's ad. And a VASS software could give even more granular information,

such as when you searched for things, and the order in which you move around the web. And obviously,

this goes well beyond consumer goods. For example, Mother learned that a vast via a subsidiary called

Jumpshot could track an individual's search activity on a pornography site and then follow them to

wherever their next internet activity was. To be clear, this data is anonymized, so Jumpshot

doesn't know it's me who needs a new toilet or search for the porn. But most things that

can be anonymized can be unanonomized. And we're talking about a whole lot of people here.

Avast claims more than 435 million active users per month with jump shot claiming data on 100

million devices. Obviously, this all feels like a massive violation of privacy, particularly

by a company that people use, in large part, to protect themselves from bad actors. But

there's also an argument that this is just the reality of living online. And clicker, beware.

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