Norton Community Watch allows Norton security product users from around the world to help speed identification and further reduce the time to deliver protection against new security risks trying to infect your computer. The program collects selected security and application data and submits the data to Symantec for analysis to identify new threats and their sources, and to help improve user security and product functionality.
You can disable and re-enable Norton Community Watch at any time by visiting the general settings under your Norton product’s options page. You can also review the data collected and sent to Symantec by selecting Norton Community Watch in the product’s Security History.
By participating in Norton Community Watch, you’re making a valuable contribution in joining other Norton security product users from around the world to make your Internet a safer place to work and play.
Norton Community Watch will collect and send to Symantec data on potential security risks trying to infect your computer, including:
- Portable executable files that are identified as malware;
- URLs of websites visited that your Norton product deems potentially fraudulent;
- The URL of the website that you most recently visited prior to installation on your computer of a downloaded security risk;
- The processes and applications running on your computer from time to time, including at the time that a potential security risk is encountered; and/or
- A sample of data sent by your computer in response to a potential security risk.
The collected data could contain personally identifiable information that a security risk is obtaining, or attempting to obtain, without your permission. The collected data may also contain your username, which should not be personally identifiable if you have selected an alias to protect your identity.
The data will be collected by Symantec for the purpose of analyzing and identifying the source of potential security risks, and improving the ability of Symantec’s products to detect malicious behavior, fraudulent websites, crimeware, and other forms of Internet security threats to provide better protection to Symantec customers in the future. The collected data may be transferred to the Symantec group in the United States or other countries that may have less protective data protection laws than the region in which you are situated (including the European Union), but Symantec has taken steps so that the collected information, if transferred, receives an adequate level of protection. Any stored data will be maintained in a secure manner, and will not be correlated with any personally identifiable information. Symantec does not aggregate the data stored by Norton Community Watch with any data, contact lists, or subscription information that is collected by Symantec for promotional purposes.
Symantec may disclose the collected information if asked to do so by a law enforcement official as required or permitted by law or in response to a subpoena or other legal process. In order to promote awareness, detection and prevention of Internet security risks, Symantec may share certain information with research organizations and other security software vendors. Symantec may also use statistics derived from the information to track and publish reports on security risk trends.
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