Settlement Reached in McAfee Class Action Suit

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)."

Comments

Reminder on who really wins in class actions...

[Gogo Dodo]

From page 14 of the Settlement Agreement:

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

idiotic lip service, nothing more

[muel]

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.

Lifetime

[NewStarRising]

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!