Symantec Sues Adware Company For The Right To Call It Adware

from the waste-of-time-and-money dept

It's come down to this? Companies now need to go to court just to get permission to call adware adware? Just two years after various spyware/malware/crapware companies started threatening to sue anyone who called them spyware, security firm Symantec feels the need to sue an adware maker for the right to call its product adware in Symantec's anti-spyware software. Microsoft faced this same problem a few months ago, and has even requested that any anti-spyware law explicitly say there's nothing illegal about calling any particular product spyware. In this case, Symantec is suing Hotbar (ironically, apparently a Microsoft partner) for creating an app that appears to do the typical adware nastiness (even better, is that it's targeted at kids). Symantec isn't suing for money, they're just trying to respond to threats of being sued by getting a declaratory judgment that there's nothing wrong with having its software declare Hotbar's software adware. Clearly, if people are complaining about the product (and they are), then it seems perfectly legitimate for Symantec to offer a removal tool. Instead of complaining about how companies classify them, why don't the folks behind Hotbar clean up their practices so people aren't complaining and trying to uninstall the product?

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