RE: Via Slashdot: Antivirus Vendors Head to Court

["David Harley" <david.a.harley () gmail com>]

> This is very confusing... The install instructions for SAVCE 
> 10.x are "remove any and all other antivirus or antispyware 
> applications before beginning installation".

I'm not sure they'd dare put that into the EULA. If they did, they'd
probably argue that they meant that you shouldn't have AV or antispyware
running during the install, not that your license is invalid if you run
other security software concurrently. That said, Symantec do tend to expect
to have the whole playing field to themselves, and some other products won't
load into memory if they think they may have to co-exist with a Symantec
product. 

> Seems to me if Kaspersky or Rising Tech put this kind of 
> disclaimer in their EULA, they wouldnt have to go to court 
> (or would win if they did). If its not unfair business 
> practice for Symantec, then lesser
> (sized) companies should have no fear.

Who says it isn't unfair business practice, if it's intended to make the
user totally reliant on one vendor?

> Even if they dont, its common knowledge that if you are dumb 
> enough to pay for and run two AV apps on the same box, that 
> you include the respective app files and folders in the 
> exclusion list of the other.

Whoa there. I run more than one AV/anti-malware app on some boxes, and I'm
not dumb. What I -don't- do (normally) is have competing on-access scanners
running at the same time, essentially for performance reasons. And common
knowledge isn't always common sense. AV apps aren't immune to compromise,
and shouldn't store virus definitions in a form that might yank another
scanner's chain. If one scanner identifies another as compromised or
infected, that shows a problem with one or both scanners: it ain't
necessarily my fault! 

> Like I said, a very wasteful and confusing lawsuit. 

Not necessarily. If Kaspersky really think it's a dirty marketing campaign,
you can't blame them for taking action. If Rising really think Kaspersky are
targeting their product in some way, you can't blame them, either. Without
knowing the facts behind the article, how can you be sure?

> Nothing 
> good will come of this.. 

You may well be right about that...

> Maybe a law preventing AV apps from 
> behaving as they should..

What, a law against FPs? Not very practical, I agree, but it's not as though
AV is -supposed- to get it wrong...

-- 
David Harley CISSP, Small Blue-Green World
Security Author/Editor/Consultant/Researcher
AVIEN Guide to Malware:
http://www.smallblue-greenworld.co.uk/pages/avienguide.html
Security Bibliography:
http://www.smallblue-greenworld.co.uk/pages/bibliography.html

 

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