AVG Technologies (NYSE: AVG), the provider of Internet and mobile security to 143 million active users, today announced that in honor of Data Privacy Day, they have released a special student edition of Wide Open Privacy: Strategies for the Digital Life for free – as an Amazon e-book or as a PDF from the AVG website. Published by IT- Harvest Press (2012) and written by AVG CEO JR Smith and Chief Policy Officer Siobhan MacDermott, the book reveals how individuals can take proactive control of their online identity, reputation and personal brand.

“The strategies contained in Wide Open Privacy are especially useful to students as they negotiate the transition between their academic and/or adolescent personas into adult and professional ones,” said Smith. “From social media to retail, and given today’s cluttered, volatile and wiki-speed information environment, young people face a specific set of challenges in managing their everyday lives. Wide Open Privacy provides clear methods to enrich the online experience across all connected devices – and confidence that the decisions students make today will not haunt their digital existence in the years to come.”

Neither “idiot’s guide” nor academic treatise, Wide Open Privacy responds to urgent public demand for better and easier tools to understand and navigate the powerful but potentially treacherous seas of e-commerce, online banking, social media, and cloud content sharing.

“Especially as they adopt and settle on the habits that will define their lives, students cannot afford to put their fate in the hands of government or big business – or even in the hands of the photo-happy friends they partied with last night,” said MacDermott. “Individuals need to take personal control of their digital destinies. Wide Open Privacy offers clear strategies and tech-savvy tactics to achieve the necessary control to live safer, more productive lives online.”

AVG believes everyone needs a reliable toolkit to best manage their identity and reputation in the digital world. Especially when it comes to policymakers and corporations, consumers are not always empowered by or provided with policies that acknowledge their right to make their own decisions when it comes to online reputations, privacy and peace of mind. Until governments and companies deliver that acknowledgment, Internet users need to play offense—hard. Wide Open Privacy helps them do this.

Learn more about Wide Open Privacy

About AVG Technologies (NYSE: AVG)

AVG's mission is to simplify, optimize and secure the Internet experience, providing peace of mind to a connected world. AVG's powerful yet easy-to-use software and online services put users in control of their Internet experience. By choosing AVG's software and services, users become part of a trusted global community that benefits from inherent network effects, mutual protection and support. AVG has grown its user base to 143 million active users as of September 30, 2012 and offers a product portfolio that targets the consumer and small business markets and includes Internet security, PC performance optimization, online backup, mobile security, identity protection and family safety software.

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