3 September 2007

Zango loses case against Kaspersky Lab

Antony Savvas, Computer Weekly

Security software firm Kaspersky Lab has won a case brought by a company that wanted security blocks on its adware removed.

A US district court ruled in favour of Kaspersky Lab, granting immunity from liability in the case brought by online media company Zango.

Zango sued Kaspersky Lab to force the company to reclassify Zango's programs as non-threatening and to prevent Kaspersky Labs's security software from blocking Zango's "potentially undesirable programs", said Kaspersky

The judge threw out the lawsuit on the grounds that Kaspersky was immune from liability under the Communications Decency Act, part of which states: "No provider or user of an interactive computer service shall be held liable on account of any action voluntarily taken in good faith to restrict access to or availability of material that the provider or user considers to be obscene, lewd, lascivious, filthy, excessively violent, harassing, or otherwise objectionable, whether or not such material is constitutionally protected."

Kaspersky said the ruling protects anti-malware providers' right to identify and label software programs that may be potentially unwanted and harmful to a user's computer as they see fit.

Zango had already dropped a case it brought against another security firm.

This article first appeared on the web-site of Computer Weekly, at http://www.computerweekly.com//Articles/2007/09/03/226537/zango-loses-case-against-kaspersky-lab.htm. © Reed Business Information 2007.

Interview: Eugene Kaspersky (May/June 2007 issue)

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