Symantec Brings Complaint Against MS to EU

linumax writes "Symantec has made a complaint against Microsoft to EC anti-trust regulators over the software giant's entry into the security market. The "informal" complaint allows the Commission to consider whether or not an anti-trust case is merited. The Commission is the executive branch of the European Union (EU)." From the article: "The news comes on the day Microsoft announced plans to begin offering business users an integrated anti-virus and anti-spyware product called Microsoft Client Protection. A beta version of this product is expected to be released by year's end. The company is already offering some customers a beta version of its Windows OneCare consumer security software. At issue is Microsoft's plan to bundle its security software with Windows Vista, the next major version of the Windows operating system due next year."

Comments

Mafia

[tobybuk]

And I the only one that thinks that MS offering anti virus software is very similar to the mafia offering 'protection'?

Re:Mafia

[Kjella]

It's pretty ridiculous to ship an OS with a broken security model AND the antivirus and firewall to fix the problems. Why not just design it right in the first place?

Well, the fact that the users are broken as well. If linux users ran every funny program that dumped into their inbox or came across on some shady site, they'd be equally screwed. However you want to tell me the linux security model helps, it doesn't. If people were used to sudo as root to install something, they'd install this. If they had to chmod programs +x, they'd chmod this too. The only way you could protect users against themselves is to make it very hard to install software (bad) or lock them in to only use your distro's software (worse). Or run anti-virus. I don't recall the last time my anti-virus warned me about something that I didn't consider obvious, I don't actually need it (but I design security in layers, just in case). Anti-virus is a fix for broken users, not broken software. And Linux and BSD ships with a firewall too, that's hardly a sign of breakage.

Cry me a river....

[6Yankee]

I'd feel a whole lot more sympathy towards Symantec if Norton Internet Security 2005 didn't depend on Internet Explorer.

The price they pay for being monolitic

[Raul654]

I'm all for anti-trust laws, but I think this situation is a bit ridiculous -- the complaint is utterly without merit. Symantec and McAfee built their buisness models on Windows being a shoddy, insecure POS. Now, that Microsoft is tightening it down and including a virus scanner, and they are crying foul because it's going to put them out of buisness? I'm sorry, but that's the price they pay for being monolithic, for failing to diversify. Structural unemployment is a bitch.