Symantec Sued For Running Fake "Scareware" Scans 391
Sparrowvsrevolution writes "James Gross, a resident of Washington State, filed what he intends to be a class action lawsuit against Symantec in a Northern District California court Tuesday, claiming that Symantec defrauds consumers by running fake scans on their machines, with results designed to bully users into upgrading to a paid version of the company's software. 'The scareware does not conduct any actual diagnostic testing on the computer,' the complaint reads. 'Instead, Symantec intentionally designed its scareware to invariably report, in an extremely ominous manner, that harmful errors, privacy risks, and other computer problems exist on the user's PC, regardless of the real condition of the consumer's computer.' Symantec denies those claims, but it has a history of using fear mongering tactics to bump up its sales. A notice it showed in 2010 to users whose subscriptions were ending in 2010 warned that 'cyber-criminals are about to clean out your bank account...Protect yourself now, or beg for mercy.'"
Not mine; but apropos... (Score:5, Funny)
Not totally fake in a way (Score:5, Funny)
So in a way, the "scareware" is not totally wrong, as it warns about a degraded system - which may well be the case after the full product is installed.
Re:Who still pays for antivirus? (Score:5, Funny)
Since you have worked at a PC shop, and are therefore are presumably a leading information security expert and well versed in the intricacies of system security auditing, please explain this process of manually checking for viruses. Given the general nature of how serious compromises actually work, this revolutionary method will be game changing. I am eagerly awaiting my subscription to your newsletter.
In all seriousness, I hope you didn't bill hours for your security expertise, although sadly I suspect you did.
Hmm. (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Who still pays for antivirus? (Score:5, Funny)
"Full shielding?" what's with the dorky sci-fi talk? Invert the phase polarity and reroute power to the weapons array! Do you call your car the Starship Enterprise as well?