Privacy-protecting Ghostery extension sold, Ghostery Inc becomes Evidon after acquisition

There's big news in the world of Ghostery Inc, the company best-known for the browser extension that boosts privacy. The firm's consumer operations have been sold to Cliqz, a German company part-owned by Mozilla, where the Ghostery extension will live on.

Ghostery Inc is rebranding to its former identity of Evidon, which will have a B2B focus. Evidon Inc will provide "monitoring and consent solutions for over 500 leading brands across the world." The deal with Cliqz is an all-cash affair, but details have not been released.

Owned by Mozilla and Hubert Burda Media, Cliqz will now be responsible not only for the Ghostery browser extension, but also the various mobile apps that exist. There are no plans to change how things operate, but it remains to be seen how users respond to the involvement of Mozilla.

Cliqz founder Jean-Paul Schmetz says:

Ghostery perfectly complements Cliqz. Just as ours, the Ghostery brand stands for privacy. In these times of heightened government monitoring around the world and increasing commercialization of private data by the advertising industry, we believe that there’s a growing demand for privacy-protecting browser and search technologies offering real alternatives to the providers that currently dominate the market.

Scott Meyer, CEO and co-founder of Evidon says:

Cliqz is the perfect home for Ghostery and consumers will continue to enjoy an enhanced online experience delivered by the Cliqz-Ghostery combination. With the rapidly increasing corporate demand for Digital Governance solutions, this transaction with Cliqz is well-timed. The EU’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) in particular has catalysed the need for Digital Governance and clients are approaching us with an increasing set of demands. This deal will ensure that clients retain access to Ghostery data about trackers, and enable Evidon to focus exclusively on the significantly growing B2B market.