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Withdraw privacy permission disables features

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heavymod

Occasional Visitor
I am aware of this thread which discusses a missing withdraw button, making it difficult to withdraw from sharing data with ASUS. However, I was surprised that withdrawing from sharing data disables the features. I guess this is clearly stated by ASUS - if you want to use any of these features, users are required to share information:

Please note that users are required to agree to share their information before using DDNS, Remote Connection (ASUS Router APP、Lyra APP、AiCloud、AiDisk), AiProtection, Traffic analyzer, Apps analyzer, Adaptive QoS, Game Boost and Web history. At any time, users can search the contents of the terms at this page or stop sharing their information with other parties by choosing Withdraw.

Is there anyway to use these features without sharing my users personal data with ASUS? This seems incredibly intrusive.

Demonstration : Toggle on Traffic Analyzer

Screenshot 2024-05-20 at 15-20-06 ASUS Wireless Router GT-AX6000 - EZQoS Bandwidth Management.png


Withdraw from sharing information

Screenshot 2024-05-20 at 15-20-24 ASUS Wireless Router GT-AX6000 - Privacy.png


Traffic Analyzer is now disabled

Screenshot 2024-05-20 at 15-20-40 ASUS Wireless Router GT-AX6000 - EZQoS Bandwidth Management.png
 
without sharing my users personal data with ASUS?

The data sharing agreement on your screen shot is for Trend Micro. The features listed use Trend Micro engine. If you don't agree to data sharing - you can't use the features listed in the agreement. This is how it works. Unfortunately, most users discover this fact only after purchasing the router. Not unique to Asus products though.
 
without sharing my users personal data with ASUS? This seems incredibly intrusive.
People generally make wild assumptions about what data is shared, based on a generic consent screen. What personally identifying data does your router have about your users? Not being disagreeable, but what do you imagine these routers can collect in this day and age of encryption? Routers have limited capacity to store and forward your data.

This issue is always a divisive one on the forums, but it’s not as intrusive as most users probably fear.
 
This old Trend Micro EULA may turn illegal in specific regions after recent EU GDPR containing texts in regards of international transfers of personal and non-personal data. Trend Micro has to start storing and processing data locally and make more specific privacy disclosures or will be forced to discontinue the service. What the EULA currently says in multiple pages and in non user friendly form is basically "you agree to give us everything listed below, but we promise not to take more than what we need" and this is no more acceptable. They have to disclose what exactly is being collected as part of this specific service and where the data will be going and used for.
 
@heavymod, the data collected is the minimum needed to give you the features it offers.

Other (much more expensive) setups may have the processing power to do that on the unit, but for these consumer routers with their limited resources, they're not capable of doing so, on their own.
 
The data sharing agreement on your screen shot is for Trend Micro. The features listed use Trend Micro engine. If you don't agree to data sharing - you can't use the features listed in the agreement. This is how it works. Unfortunately, most users discover this fact only after purchasing the router. Not unique to Asus products though.
Thanks for clarifying that. Yes, it comes as a surprise that I cannot analyze my network traffic, or monitor my child's web traffic without sending copies of it to a foreign corporation.

People generally make wild assumptions about what data is shared, based on a generic consent screen. What personally identifying data does your router have about your users? Not being disagreeable, but what do you imagine these routers can collect in this day and age of encryption?

I don't see any reason for them to have any of it. It isn't required for the services I want to use. I appreciate that the legal is written to be as permissive as possible - but it is basically useless. They will do with the data what they want, and I have no idea what data they are gathering, what AI they are training on it, or who that data is sold to.

In terms of personally identifiable data, that includes MAC addresses linked to cell phones, videos watched online, purchase interests, search traffic, location, etc. More than enough to build up marketing profiles of the users in this house. Sure, a bunch of companies already grab that data, but that's a whole 'nother issue.

Mostly it just makes me feel a bit creepy that I want to monitor my child's web traffic, and they are like, WE WOULD ALSO LIKE TO MONITOR YOUR CHILD'S DATA! PLEASE AGREE TO LET US WATCH EVERYTHING YOU DO ONLINE OR YOU CANNOT USE OUR SOFTWARE.
 
@heavymod, the data collected is the minimum needed to give you the features it offers.

Other (much more expensive) setups may have the processing power to do that on the unit, but for these consumer routers with their limited resources, they're not capable of doing so, on their own.
Fair enough. I'm not knowledgeable enough to have any idea if that is what they are actually doing.
 
without sending copies of it

Your traffic doesn't go to/through Trend Micro. They collect mostly non-personalized usage statistics data for analysis and used for commercial products development and improvement. I'm in doubt Trend Micro sells data for profit. You already have Apple, Google, Microsoft, Amazon and perhaps bunch of IoT devices doing this for you.
 
The two URLs known to the Trend Micro components on the router are:
Code:
ntd-asus-2014b-en.fbs20.trendmicro.com - used by dcd
rgom10-asus-en.url.trendmicro.com - used by wred
You can setup an experiment to resolve these IPs, and setup a tcpdump capture running all day to see how much data goes to these URLs over the course of a day.
 
I have the domains and number of queries per day information:

1716258908696.png


Not interested in data volume at the moment, someone else can check. Definitely not "all the traffic" though, perhaps few MB/day.
 
I have the domains and number of queries per day information:


Not interested in data volume at the moment, someone else can check. Definitely not "all the traffic" though, perhaps few MB/day.

Thanks for doing that. I did not suppose they were routing all traffic or sending copies of all data. Just getting a dump of mac addresses / visited URLs / Timestamp would be enough to make me uncomfortable.
 
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