I think it is a great idea to inquire about a company's position WRT to cooperating with (domestic and/or foreign) government agencies and get that in the public record so to speak. The simple act of asking... seeing if and how the company responds... may tell you something. I believe Avast Software is based in the Czech Republic. I am not familiar with the technical and practical legal climate in that country. In general, though, many government agencies wield great power and are capable of "making things happen". In many places there are national security, etc angles which they can use to legally prevent a company from disclosing anything about a government order. Some companies will spend substantial sums of money to fight such actions. Most surely would not. So, although some companies truly make an effort to stick to angelic principles and do what is best for their customers, it is unwise to believe that they will (be able to do so) in all cases. Sometimes, another party (be it government, organized crime, a lone blackmailer) has leverage and overwhelming advantage over you (be that company or individual employee, legal or illegal).
Nearly all privacy policies are worthless. In general they are crafted so as to make the customer FEEL safe while still allowing the company to engage in privacy degrading practices. Looking at the Privacy Policy at
http://www.avast.com/en-us/privacy-policy for example, notice it says "When you register, or otherwise give us personal information, AVAST Software a.s. (formerly ALWIL Software a.s.) will not share that information with third parties without your permission...". So far so good, but then comes: "other than for the limited exceptions already listed." What are those exceptions? I see two: "to help us create and provide content that is relevant to you" and "to alert you about product upgrades, special offers, and other information and services available from from AVAST Software a.s. (formerly ALWIL Software a.s.), in accordance with your requests". That creates a loophole such that Avast Software CAN share your information with third parties as long as those third parties are involved in doing those two things. Note: I'm just using this as an example. I currently don't know precisely what Avast Software is or is not doing with respect to information sharing. One important question would be whether Avast Software is using a third party CRM type firm to handle the client database, process purchases, communications, things like that. A surprising number of even large/deep-pocketed companies (that COULD be doing and SHOULD be doing things in house) use such firms.
If you are concerned about privacy I would recommend you do NOT participate in the avast community, do NOT use WebRep, and do NOT use the CreditAlert thing. Make every effort to PREVENT your personal identity and information from being linked/linkable to the software you have running on your machine.