I asked each of the six other companies I looked into for this post whether or not they tracked the websites their users visit.
Every major manufacturer I looked into discloses that it collects some form of user data for the purpose of marketing - but almost none of the policies I read included any language that explicitly answered the question of whether or not a user should expect their web history to be logged or recorded. Is my router really tracking the websites I visit?Īlmost all of the web traffic in your home passes through your router, so maybe it's difficult to imagine that it isn't tracking the websites that you're visiting as you browse. You can find more details on that in the "Is my data being sold?" section. *CommScope, which manufactures Arris networking products, claims that it does not sell data collected from products, but rather, that some of its business operations including order fulfillment and data analytics may constitute a sale under California law. Shares Personal Data with Outside Third PartiesĪllows Users to Opt Out of Data Collection I also tried to determine if any manufacturers were sharing the personal data they collect with third parties outside of their control, and whether or not they were "selling" personal data as defined by the California Consumer Privacy Act. All of the policies I read confirmed that the company in question collected personal data for the purpose of marketing, but I wanted to know which ones, if any, track user web activity, including websites visited while browsing. In cases where a company uses a third-party partner to offer additional services like threat detection or a virtual private network, you may need to read multiple privacy policies in order to follow your data to the fullest.Īll of that made for a daunting task as I set out to read through everything, so I focused my attention on finding the answers to a few key questions for each manufacturer. A few manufacturers are starting to get a bit better about this, with overview sections designed to summarize the key points in plain English, but even then, specifics are typically sparse, meaning you'll still need to dig deeper into the fine print to get the best understanding of what's going on with your data.
Most of them are written in carefully worded legalese that's crafted more to protect the company than to inform you, the consumer. Simply put, none of these privacy policies make for quick reading. All of the router privacy policies mentioned in this post are thousands of words long, and much of what's in them can be confusing or irrelevant to users.
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