May 08 2008
What Happens When You Sue an Anti-Spyware Company
In case you missed it, Zango is sueing anti-spyware company Kaspersky Lab alleging that the company interfered with Zango’s business relationships with consumers by removing Zango adware from people’s computers.
Now people get Kaspersky product specifically for the purpose of removing adware and spyware, which serves consumers pop-up ads based on their Web-surfing activity.
If Zango were to win this suit (I don’t think they have a change, but I am not a lawyer) what does this mean for companies who specifically serve people by blocking content that is most likely harmful to them.
Being in the email spam business, I will tell you, there is no way to be 100% perfect at it, we can get pretty darn close, but not 100% perfect 100% of the time.
I am scared of the ramifications of this and hope the courts realize that it is the job of Zango to make a product that doesn’t alert the programs to possible bad behaviour.
While companies that detect and block spam, spyware, adware and more work hard to get it right (we will lose customers otherwise) both sides need to work together, not sue each other.
