Consumers United in Court (CUIC) is a non-profit foundation which protects the privacy of people by bring collective litigation when needed. We want to force organizations to comply with laws and regulations regarding the protection of our privacy.

CUIC stands for Consumers United in Court. You pronounce the abbreviation as "quick". But you can also pronounce it as "See You in Court" ;-).

The articles of association containing the full statutory purpose of CUIC Foundation can be found here. CUIC is registered in the Amsterdam Chamber of Commerce under number 84332794

We were founded by two well-known non-profit organizations: noyb, an NGO based in Austria and by Stichting Privacy First, an NGO based in the Netherlands.

Both noyb and Privacy First joined forces to create a serious and credible foundation (stichting) in the Netherlands for collective action.

A collective action is a court procedure in which an organization (like CUIC) is acting on behalf of a group of persons.

Since litigation in court can last for a longer period, can be very expensive and complex for consumers acting alone, CUIC joins forces and goes to court on the consumers' behalf to make sure that violation stops and that users will be adequately compensated for the violation of their privacy.

When CUIC wins a case, or agrees to settle on behalf of those (who choose to be) represented, all reasonable actions will be taken to reach as many consumers as possible. In that stage, the way in which the compensation process for participants can be handled effectively will be decided on as well. It can depend on the decision of the court or the agreement.

We set the highest standards for handling your data. How we do this is described in our privacy statement. You can find it here.

You can e-mail us at info@cuic.eu.

Avast violated European and Dutch privacy rules by spying on its users with its antivirus software and reselling data to third parties for its own gain through its own sister company Jumpshot.

Avast even ran special ads urging parents to use Avast browser extensions to make sure their children could browse the internet safely. Meanwhile, information about browsing habits, preferences, religion etc. was sold without the users' consent, often for subsequent commercial purposes, targeted marketing efforts or profiling. As a result, data of users of Avast software ended up in the hands of numerous third parties between 2014 and 30 January 2020. The collective action covers this period of misconduct by Avast. CUIC demands Avast to reimburse the damages done.

Whilst Avast has publicly admitted its wrongdoing and confirmed having stopped the practice of reselling, it has not awarded any compensation to injured parties.

Until now, Avast has not been held accountable for its illegal behavior. Companies will generally not put much effort into doing better next time unless they are held accountable. Therefore, besides compensation for duped consumers, CUIC also wants to set a strong example that this behavior is unacceptable and will not be condoned.

We are going to hold Avast liable on behalf of all users in The Netherlands of Avast software for the illegal collection and sale of user data.

To participate in the collective action against Avast, you must live or have lived in the Netherlands in the period from 2014 to 30 January 2020 (the "Relevant Period") and have had Avast security software or antivirus software on your computer, phone, tablet or laptop during this period. This often involved free browsers and browser extensions.

Are you under 18 and did you use Avast software? Then please ask permission from your parent(s) and/or guardian(s) to sign up for this case.

You can join our action using the form on this website. This is important to us because we want to prove in court that many Avast users join us in our collective action. The more people sign up, the stronger we are as a collective.

Signing up is free of charge. We work on a no cure, no pay basis. If the case does not succeed, and therefore no damages are paid, you do not owe anyone anything either. If damages do get awarded, the independent funder of the case -Omni Bridgeway- is entitled to a percentage of that. This is because litigation is expensive, and the funder assumes the start-up costs and also runs the financial risk. What percentage of your compensation you owe to Omni Bridgeway in the event of a successful case, depends on the amount of compensation and the number of injured parties. The participant agreement explains exactly how this works.

Depending on Avast's efforts, we expect the proceedings to take several years. Legal proceedings take time. Rest assured, we are motivated to bring consumers results as fast as possible.

If you cannot or do not want to use iDIN, we offer another solution: you can request an application form via info@cuic.eu. We will then email that to you. Similar court cases have shown that the courts look closely at whether someone who applies really exists and lives in the Netherlands. We do not want to run the risk of our cases breaking down on this. With iDIN, it can be conclusively proven that anyone who signs up is actually a person living in the Netherlands. In addition, as a foundation we set the highest standards for privacy. By using iDIN, we do not store your data. We only store the fact that you have been identified. This way we have proof of your participation in our claim, but not all kinds of personal data somewhere. We think this is the safest way of working at the moment. For those who cannot or do not want to use iDIN, we offer an alternative solution with an application form that you can request at info@cuic.eu.

You can end your participation at any time if you wish to do so. A registration can be revoked within 14 days. After that, you can cancel at any time without giving reasons, subject to a 30-day notice period. But if you subsequently receive any compensation from Avast (partly) thanks to the efforts of the Foundation for Avast's actions as raised in the collective action, you will only owe the agreed possible compensation for costs despite the cancellation. And only if we cannot recover these costs from Avast, which we will always try as CUIC for all involved.

You can revoke or cancel by sending an email to: info@cuic.eu. In that e-mail, please include your name and e-mail address with which you registered. The Foundation will send a confirmation of the revocation or cancellation within 5 working days.

I live outside the Netherlands, can I join the case? If you lived in the Netherlands during (part of) the period 2014 - January 2020, you can join our lawsuit if you had Avast or AVG software on your computer/laptop/tablet/smartphone. Unfortunately, if you lived outside the Netherlands for the entire period, you cannot join our case. The legislation on collective claims is such that we are not allowed to represent you then. If an idealistic foundation emerges in your country that wants to file a similar claim, we are very willing to help them. In addition: hopefully it will be easier to get damages for Avast/AVG users in other EU countries if we win the court case in the Netherlands. Did you live in the Netherlands sometime between 2014 and January 2020 and want to sign up but no longer have access to iDIN? For people who cannot or do not want to use IDin, we now offer another option to sign up: send an email to info@cuic.eu and ask for an application form. Naturally, we will handle your data very carefully, as is also described in the privacy statement, which you can find on this website under 'Documents’.

Yes, you can. Even without hard evidence, you can join our collective action, as long as you are sure that you had Avast/AVG anti virus software on your computer/laptop/tablet/smartphone sometime during the period 2014 - January 2020. We believe that the burden of proof for who was/was not a user of the spying Avast products lies primarily with Avast. They have all the customer data. We think Avast should accommodate all customers from that period, and pay compensation. That is therefore the request we are going to court with, and in many similar cases the courts have followed this line of reasoning.

You don't need hard evidence that you were a user of Avast/AVG software to participate in our lawsuit. As long as you yourself are certain that you were using Avast/AVG's anti virus software (such as browsers and browser extensions) during the Relevant Period. We think the burden of proof for this lies primarily with Avast. Should the court still want to ask for proof that our participants actually had this software on their computers, we can approach you and other participants by email asking you to send it to us. If not all our participants still have that evidence, we assume we will be able to collect sufficient evidence. You can help our lawsuit by seeing if you can capture evidence now that you were a user. You can do this in the following ways. Did you have paid software from Avast/AVG? If so, take screenshots or photos of the write-offs. Were you a user of free or paid software from Avast/AVG between 2014 and January 2020? As for browser extensions, use of the anti-virus software can be traced by looking at the history of extensions used. For example: with Google Chrome, you can find this out as follows: Open the Chrome Web Store via https://chrome.google.com/webstore, click the 'Gear' icon, select 'My Extensions & Apps', and then the 'library' to see which items are not currently installed but were previously installed. In other browsers, this works in much the same way. As for mobile devices, this can be found out by looking at the history of downloaded apps. See for Apple https://www.businessinsider.com/guides/tech/how-to-see-all-apps-ever-downloaded-on-iphone For Android https://www.businessinsider.com/guides/tech/how-to-see-all-apps-ever-downloaded-on-android?international=true&r=US&IR=T Finally, Avast can probably find out if you were a user based on your email address. Try to check if you remember which mail address you used to use Avast software. If you no longer use that mail address, no problem. As long as you can prove that it was your mail address. We would ask you to keep the proof you gathered safe for the time being. If the court asks us to provide evidence, we will ask all our participants to send it to us. Thank you in advance for your help!

The original and prevailing text of the Deelnemersovereenkomst (Participation Agreement) is the Dutch version. We can provide you with an informal translation to English: send us a request on info@cuic.eu Any discrepancies or differences created in the English translation are not binding and have no legal effect.

CUIC Foundation is an independent not-for-profit organization. The foundation was founded by two strong, independent organizations: the Dutch Privacy First and noyb. These two organizations both have a long, successful history of constructive struggle for a world where your privacy is guarded.

The management board of CUIC is responsible for its daily operations. More information about the board members can be found under 'about us'. Our articles of association can be found here.

The supervision of the board's policy and strategy and the general affairs of the CUIC Foundation is entrusted to our Supervisory Board. The Supervisory Board also advises, solicited and unsolicited, the board and performs the monitoring tasks defined in the "Claim Code 2019" [link to accountability document]. The Board can also be advised, only solicited, by other organizations.

More information on the members of the Supervisory Board can be found on this page.

The board members and Supervisory Board members of the Consumers United in Court Foundation (CUIC) receive remuneration for their work. This remuneration is in line with what is common in other non-profit organizations. The remuneration for the board members and supervisory board members be found in the claim code compliance document.

In the Avast claim, CUIC foundation is assisted by two law firms: Lemstra Van der Korst and Pels Rijcken. For more information, see the websites of Lemstra Van der Korst and Pels Rijcken. They have extensive experience in this type of collective action.

CUIC is an independent non-profit foundation. We do not ask for a contribution from the people we represent. Researching and preparing a collective action takes a lot of time and resources. Especially when legal proceedings are initiated. To make the proceedings against Avast possible without any contribution and risk for you as a participant, we use external funding.

For each lawsuit, we look for one or more ethical funders that are willing to advance the costs of the lawsuit and other costs, and run the risk. For our first lawsuit, against Avast, the costs are funded by Omni Bridgeway. This is originally an Australian company that has been funding lawsuits worldwide (not in the United States) since 1986. Their statutory seat is currently in Geneva, Switzerland. They have already supported numerous class actions against large organizations and companies that have caused mass damages. Read more at Omni Bridgeway's website.

If successful, all claimed compensation minus a fee for the Omni Bridgeway, will go to consumers having decided to join our action, like you potentially, and to those that can be found afterwards.