Norton vs McAfee

Norton (Gen Digital) collects some of the most sensitive personal data of any consumer service — Social Security numbers, bank account details, driver's licence numbers, and mother's maiden name for LifeLock identity monitoring — while simultaneously running a targeted advertising business that shares user, device, and website data with advertising partners; network traffic and screen activity are monitored for security purposes; and data flows broadly across Gen Digital's corporate group, distributors, resellers, marketing partners, and analytics providers, all retained for vaguely defined periods.

McAfee is a broad consumer security suite that necessarily collects significant data — including email content for AI scam detection, financial account login credentials for transaction monitoring, and SSN/credit card numbers for identity monitoring — and shares contact and commercial information with advertising partners; its CCPA transparency table is unusually specific and confirms browsing and network activity are not shared for advertising, the VPN explicitly avoids logging originating IPs or DNS queries, and CCPA request metrics are published, but the overall collection scope is extensive, retention is vague, and no security certifications are named in the main policy.