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Settlement Reached in McAfee Class Action Suit

Posted by timothy on from the doesn't-run-well-on-linux dept.

An anonymous reader writes "Network Associates has reached a settlement in a class action suit alleging it broke its own license agreements by not providing users of VirusScan 3 & 4 with free lifetime upgrades. Although not admitting guilt, the settlement entitles all U.S. (sorry to the rest of the globe) owners of the older versions free upgrades to VirusScan v8 (or, optionally, QuickClean/AntiSpyware). If eligible, you have until July 16th to fill out this form. The settlement page also contains links to the Class Notice and Settlement Agreement (in PDF format)."

24 comments

  1. Free Software? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Interesting

    The page to put in your information http://software.mcafee.com/lcas/ doesn't seem to require any ID# or something for the software. Does this mean free AV software for everyone?

    1. Re:Free Software? by ln+-sf+head+ass · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Yup, for the first year. Hard to tell how much of a "punishment" this is for McAfee.

  2. Congradulations by MBCook · · Score: 3, Informative
    Congradulations users. They promised you life-time updates and they renegged, so you sued.

    And what did you "win"? A free upgrade to a product with only one year of free updates.

    How did anyone "win" anything in this one? A refund of the origional purchase price AND a free upgrade would have been much more fair.

    If N.A. was nice, they'd give the customers a free upgrade and the free upgrades that they promissed.

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    1. Re:Congradulations by MBCook · · Score: 1
      and the free upgrades that they promised

      That should read "and the free updates for life that they were promised.", just incase anyone wondered. Sorry 'bout that.

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      Comment forecast: Bits of genius surrounded by a sea of mediocrity.
    2. Re:Congradulations by Green+Light · · Score: 4, Interesting
      From the fill-out form:
      A settlement has been reached in a class action lawsuit over McAfee VirusScan versions 3 and 4. If you are a U.S. resident and you bought a retail version of McAfee VirusScan version 3 or version 4, then you are a member of the class. As a member of the class, you may receive a free download version of your choice of one of the three McAfee perpetual products: (1) VirusScan version 8, (2) AntiSpyware version 1.0, or (3) QuickClean version 4.01 (collectively "Software").

      They call the free downloads "perpetual" products - surely this implies that you will get updates?
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    3. Re:Congradulations by nacturation · · Score: 2, Informative

      Congradulations users. They promised you life-time updates and they renegged, so you sued.

      How do you define lifetime? Usually, the lifetime refers to the product itself. Versions 3 and 4 have essentially been end-of-lifed. This sounds like McAfee probably didn't specify fully enough what "lifetime" means in their EULA. As a result, the lawyers get a quarter million dollars in legal fees. (Pet peeve: the word is congratulate. Think "gratuity", not "graduity". Oh, and while I'm being a spelling Nazi here, "reneged" has one "g".)

      And what did you "win"? A free upgrade to a product with only one year of free updates.

      Check out the PDF for the settlement terms. Emphasis mine:

      The parties have come to a settlement. Network Associates agrees to give each Class member a coupon for a free download of the perpetual version of one of the following: (i) McAfee VirusScan version 8, (ii) AntiSpyware version 1.0 or (iii) QuickClean version 4.01 (or the most recent versions at the time of download) software from mcafee.com.

      Perpetual, ie: never ending.

      If N.A. was nice, they'd give the customers a free upgrade and the free upgrades that they promissed.

      They did, if you'd RTFA.

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  3. Reminder on who really wins in class actions... by Gogo+Dodo · · Score: 4, Insightful
    From page 14 of the Settlement Agreement:

    CLASS COUNSEL will receive $227,000.00 in attorneys' fees, costs, and expenses

  4. Sure.... by methangel · · Score: 3, Funny

    ....I bought it. Really. I did. O_o

  5. Re: avg antivirus by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    A link would be nice...

  6. Hmmm.... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Will this clobber my system if I try to uninstall it, like the last version did?

  7. :Free Software? And worth less than that. by frovingslosh · · Score: 2, Interesting
    Hard to tell how much of a "punishment" this is for McAfee.

    Or how much punishment it is for the user. I have a qualifying product right here at my side (version 4), but there is no way I'll ever install another McAfee product on my systems again. Here's yet another case of the class action lawyers getting rich, while the members of the class get less than nothing.

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    1. Re::Free Software? And worth less than that. by Alsee · · Score: 1

      Here's yet another case of the class action lawyers getting rich, while the members of the class get less than nothing.

      Well, considering the lawsuit was for McAfee's failure to provide "free lifetime upgrades", and considering that never want to install another McAfee product, it's a bit comical for you to bitch about members of the class getting screwed.

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    2. Re::Free Software? And worth less than that. by frovingslosh · · Score: 1
      Well, considering the lawsuit was for McAfee's failure to provide "free lifetime upgrades", and considering that never want to install another McAfee product, it's a bit comical for you to bitch about members of the class getting screwed.

      So by your logic it's OK for a company to advertise free lifetime data updates and then not deliver on that, as long as the software is bad enough that it screws up the entire OS too? And it's OK for lawyers to put together a class for such an issue and then settle on a 1 year update for still bad software for the class victims, but demand to take their share of the settlement in cold hard cash?

      --
      I'm an American. I love this country and the freedoms that we used to have.
    3. Re::Free Software? And worth less than that. by Alsee · · Score: 1

      So by your logic it's OK for a company to...

      No, I did not say anything about that.

      And it's OK for lawyers to...

      I did not say anything about that either.

      I found it comical that you somehow got screwed when the last thing you would want would be for McAfee to have upheld their commitment.

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    4. Re::Free Software? And worth less than that. by tbase · · Score: 1

      Sticking my nose in... He got screwed because the lawyers are getting cash and he, as one of the "victims" gets shiite. Even if he wanted to use their product, he'd still only get 12 months of upgrades, when what he paid for was a lifetime up upgrades. Even if he died within the next 12 months, he still wouldn't have gotten anything for the years prior when he didn't get the free upgrades he paid for. Even if a "lifetime" were taken to mean 10 years, since he only got 1 (if that), then he should have received 90% of his purchase price back.

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    5. Re::Free Software? And worth less than that. by Alsee · · Score: 1

      I understand all that just fine - however I was strictly commenting on the irony in his post. Specificly, that he becomes a victim if he receives what he was entitled to in the first place.

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      - - You can't take something off the Internet! That's like trying to take pee out of a swimming pool.
  8. idiotic lip service, nothing more by muel · · Score: 5, Insightful

    This has to be among the most unnecessary "stipulations" of a settlement I've ever heard. Why, you might ask? Because only the people who purchased McAfee VirusScan and HAVEN'T upgraded it on a regular basis will be able to take advantage of this deal. Any home/business user who consciously ensures the security of his system(s) could care less about this "free" offer, since he's already upgraded from versions 3 & 4 (come onnnnn! we're at 8 already! talk about overdue!), while the others who purchased those older versions and haven't upgraded.. well, seriously, do you really think they're visiting Slashdot or checking the McAfee press releases on a frequent basis? Of course not. Hell, even if they did check the McAfee website lately, they'd find no easy-to-find trace of this upgrade.

    This extra "offer" is really useless lip service that gives fake dignity to the company. "Whoops, we messed up, but we're taking care of it, even though it won't even cost us 100 copies of the software in question, but hey, it looks noble and respectful to the people who ARE paying attention, right?" Bullocks.

  9. Yes... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Name: I. A. Mavirus
    Address: 123 Virus Street
    City: Viropolis
    State: Alabama
    ZIP: 50001
    EMail: iamavirus@mailinator.com

    'Congratulations, here's your download link'

  10. Lifetime by NewStarRising · · Score: 4, Insightful

    By "lifetime", they meant "lifetime of the product", not "lifetime of the purchaser". The product has been reached the end of its lifetime, hence the upgrades stop. You can tell the product has reached the end of its lifetime, as defined by stopping the upgrades for it!

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    1. Re:Lifetime by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      It's the people who have lifes, not products. Saying 'lifetime' without further explanation defaults to my life, not some virtual entity's life.

      Consider a life insurance. You wouldn't expect it to refer to 'life' of the paper it is written on, would you?

  11. Re: avg antivirus by bradkittenbrink · · Score: 2, Informative

    ask and ye shall receive:

    AVG antivirus

  12. Not a chance in HELL! by meanroy · · Score: 1

    The lawyers always win.

    About 3-4 years ago I tried to upgrade my copy of McAfee after my home system became contaminated with *some* virus.

    Thus began a saga-like struggle to fight my way through a maze of poorly linked pages.

    After spending several hours trying to BUY an upgrade, I discovered that, in fact, the ONLY way I could complete this process was to go back to the beginning and repeat the process using IE instead of Netscape.

    This pissed me off so badly that I instead bought a new subscription to Norton AntiVirus.

    I STILL get undesired spam from McAfee although I 'opted out' of their 'advisories' a couple of times.

    This review dumps on both McAfee and Symantec, though I haven't had many issues with Symantecs product to date.

    I did have to call my buddy "BlueHairedDave" over to get rid of a trojan one time, though I count that as my own fault since I clicked on a .pif in some spam by accident.

    I plan to move over to an open source product when it looks like one has achieved some level of maturity.

    1. Re:Not a chance in HELL! by meanroy · · Score: 1

      WHat the heck!
      I previewed this post and STILL the article link doesn't show up!
      Area51 re-visited!
      Oh well Here it is again. (reviews-zdnet BTW.)