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Kaspersky Files Antitrust Complaint Against Microsoft Over Disabling Its Antivirus Software (bloomberg.com)
Russian security software maker Kaspersky Lab has filed antitrust complaints against Microsoft with the European Commission and the German federal cartel office, it said in a statement on Tuesday. From a report: Kaspersky sent a formal complaint to European Union and German antitrust regulators, saying "hurdles" created by Microsoft limit consumer choice and drive up the cost of security software. "With the release of Windows 10, Microsoft started to create obstacles to competing manufacturers of security solutions, and introduce different ways of pushing users to forgo third-party software in favor of its own Windows Defender," Moscow-based Kaspersky said in a statement. In a statement, Eugene Kaspersky said, "We see clearly -- and are ready to prove -- that Microsoft uses its dominant position in the computer operating system (OS) market to fiercely promote its own -- inferior -- security software (Windows Defender) at the expense of users' previously self-chosen security solution. Such promotion is conducted using questionable methods, and we want to bring these methods to the attention of the anti-competition authorities."
Microsoft has created a monopoly by almost literally forcing (decades ago) OEMs to pre-infect their hardware with Windows OS. If Microsoft can have a monopoly on systems infected with malware, then why can't it have a monopoly on the cure? It must be one of the rules of acquisition. Sell them the problem, and then sell them the cure for it. Why should others be able to profit selling the solution to a problem Microsoft created? If the solution is "too" effective, then malware may disappear -- which would hurt the market for anti-malware.
I'll see your senator, and I'll raise you two judges.
I'm not expecting any different outcome in the long run.
Oh, Microsoft, is there anything you can't fuck up? Is there any line you won't cross in pursuit of profits and customer lock-in? Is there not a single engineer, programmer, or executive in your organization with an intact pair of balls who will pause, and think, "Wait, we shouldn't do this..."?
No? Okay, just checking.
Just cruising through this digital world at 33 1/3 rpm...
Microsoft has been an upstanding corporate citizen since settling the US antitrust case and increasing its lobbying budget from zero dollars to millions of dollars each year.
That company makes cars easily stolen because the lock is weak. Thus a number of 3rd party shops sell locks that improve the car security. Then the car maker decides to fix the locks and the 3rd party accessory is not necessary anymore - who is to blame? Seriously, these anti-viruses have always been Windows parasites that only flourished thanks to Microsoft unable to implement a decent security solution earlier.
Slashdot, fix the reply notifications... You won't get away with it...
Microsoft sucks, too...and they're deserving of the hate they get, but Kaspersky may suck worse. I lost all respect for them as an "antivirus" application when one of my clients couldn't use Git because of it. Kaspersky identified Git (using SourceTree as a client) as malware, and kind of fucked up her file system, requiring her to do a system restore. After that, the client pretty much refused to use SourceTree, because she was convinced that it was a virus. Fuck Kaspersky...go Microsoft.
Seriously, I work in the IT industry, many of us ban all traffic from Russia and several Asian states by default. This means that Kapersky has the unfortunate side effect even though being cheaper unable to automatically update because it's on russian soil thus for us IT folks we've started to Migrate to other software that does auto update without fail and has local servers. If Kapersky would setup sub update servers on each state and tie their software to the country, with the correct DNS ties in the software the update process wouldn't be that difficult to maintain.
You forgot to add Microsoft in the mix.
Anti-Virus software in order to work, needs to be rather invasive to the system it is running on. So the OS Maker doesn't want to have anyone making an "Anti-Virus" program to be installed with that level of rights. As we have a mountain of scams coming from the disguise of anti-virus and security software.
Now Kaspersky could be making a solid and safe product... However their country of origin has been a bad player in the world community, so there is also general fear on how much control will the Russian government have on their product? One Anti-Virus update to back doors to our PC.
Finally we have Microsoft who has dominance on the desktop market. And unfortunately the United States is closing its door to the world and being that scary grumpy old man who doesn't trust anyone. And Microsoft has been part of these problems before, meaning we would want a 3rd party security tools to monitor stuff that we don't trust from Microsoft.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
... given that Windows Defender is a re-branding of Reliable AntiVirus, whose architect (Costin Raiu) Kaspersky hired from GeCAD before GeCAD sold RAV to Microsoft?
Laudele lor desigur m-ar mahni peste masura.
switch to Linux and you wont need an anti-virus software. sheesh!!! just how shitty does the MS-Windows environment have to get before it runs itself out of business
Politics is Treachery, Religion is Brainwashing
Netscape was just one small example of MSes anti-competitive business practices. Microsoft saw NetNanny, Cybersitter, and other internet control projects as a threat (some due to bad press). So they built in their own inferior system, and put the majority of those out of business. Microsoft wanted total control of Office Applications, gave away enough "Word" to put competitors out of business. Novell was basically put out of business by MS giving "free" licensing (scaling limits) with NT3 and NT4 for a few years. See what MS did to Bordland for compiler space as well.
I'm not surprised Kaspersky filed suit, I'm more surprised that other companies had not already done so. Then again, there is a whole lot of back room deals with MS and US AV/Security companies.
-The wise argue that there are few absolutes, the fool argues that there are no probabilities.
Well Dick, it seemed like B but I'm going to go for A.