Another reason to hate Nortons

[canetoad]

I'm sure the only reason it's loaded on ANY machine is a result of all the free CDs they give away. Now Norton and McAfee are in strife for one of my pet hates: putting a firewall between yourself and your customers and hiding behind it.

http://www.theage.com.au/news/technology/security/symantec-mcafee-fined-over-unauthorised-renewals/2009/06/12/1244664838787.html

Symantec, McAfee fined over unauthorised renewals

Asher Moses
June 12, 2009 - 2:32PM


Symantec and McAfee have overhauled the way they handle Australian subscribers to their anti-virus products after they were fined $US750,000 ($922,000) by US authorities for routinely charging customer credit cards without permission.

New York's Attorney-General, Andrew Cuomo, investigated the two largest computer security software companies after receiving complaints and found they were charging customers to renew subscriptions without their knowledge or consent.

The investigation also revealed that both Symantec and McAfee made it difficult for consumers to contact them to opt out of automatic renewal or to request refunds for unauthorised credit card charges. Each was fined $US375,000.

"Companies cannot play hide the ball when it comes to the fees consumers are being charged," Cuomo said.

"Consumers have a right to know what they are paying, especially when they are unwittingly agreeing to renewal fees that will not appear on their credit card bill for months."

[Why Syzygy]

1. Desperate, aren't they?

If you can't produce a quality product, just go into the stealing biz!

[charlie]

2. It works. Boy, does it ever

They're following the path AOL blazed. Remember when you couldn't open a magazine, any magazine, and not have a couple of AOL disks fall out? You had to kick them out of the way to get to a news rack. And AOL made subscribers members for life, whether they knew it or not.

AOL's paper value got so swollen they managed to swallow Time Warner, a company that in reality was magnitudes bigger. So today Steve Case, an uncreative man of unbelievable brass and no scruples, is a jet-setting multi-billionaire.

[RoyGBiv]

4. And AOL is shit ...

Well, it always was, but it's a different level of it now.

Through all that, I managed to log on to AOL once. I spent about an hour there, figured out it was worthless, and moved on ... or back as the case may be. I was curious how they had managed to convince so many people that Usenet was an AOL feature and why I was getting so many "UNSUBSCRIBE ME NOW!" messages in my moderator's in-box when I'd never even seen these idiots post. I had failed to consider how unaware the general population was of what kinds of things were available on the Internet.

Speaking of, I wish I were more evil than I am. I could be a brazillionaire. I convinced a guy I knew whom I thought was relatively educated in these things that I had "created" IRC. I didn't do this overtly. I simply told him what it was and how to use it, back when mIRC was a BETA. He somehow got out of this explanation that it was a network I'd set up.

I considered for a moment whether I should feel insulted for him thinking I created that cesspool. :)

I wish I'd thought to charge.

[RoyGBiv]

3. Protection. Racket.

Nearly every "leader" in this industry could be dropped into a story about organized crime, and you'd never notice.