TP-Link routers and Deco Wi-Fi mesh systems caught sharing traffic with third-party vendors

TP-Link is known for producing all manner of network devices, such as routers and Wi-Fi mesh systems. For a while now, TP-Link has partnered with Avira to offer HomeCare and HomeShield, a pair of software solutions that TP-Link claims provides network protection and robust parental controls, among other features. However, it turns out that TP-Link products are also sending all traffic to third-party vendors.

Ironically, the company recently tweeted that it cares about consumer rights, despite not addressing concerns voiced by the likes of TechPowerUp, XDA Developers and u/ArmoredCavalry on Reddit. According to the latter, XDA Developers and u/ArmoredCavalry noticed that recent TP-Link products constantly send network requests to Avira domains and even ifconfig.me, a website used to identify public IP addresses.

While one may expect TP-Link products to do at least the former having subscribed to HomeCare and HomeShield, XDA Developers and u/ArmoredCavalry have demonstrated that this occurs without a membership to either functionality. In other words, TP-Link routers and Decos will attempt to contact Avira domains whether you want them to or not. Currently, there is no way to disable HomeCare or HomeShield within TP-Link apps, either.

Incidentally, XDA Developers quotes TP-Link as having said last year that:

In our experience, we have not noticed Deco X60 units pinging Avira domains as XDA Developers and u/ArmoredCavalry have. For reference, we checked for Avira network traffic using NextDNS. TP-Link has not publicly commented on the matter yet, but we will update this article if it does.

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