McAfee and Symantec (Norton) have settled a case with the New York Attorney Generals office and each have agreed to pay $375,000 each to US authorities for automatically renewing consumers' antivirus software subscriptions without their consent. The two largest security software firms will not have to be more upfront and clear about the renewal fees and the cancellation process.
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"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."
Investigators found that the terminology regarding automated renewals was buried deep in web pages related to license agreements.
In McAfees defense, Tim Clemens, enterprise sales director for McAfee in Australia, said it was also making changes to its subscription process but stressed auto-renewal was critical for customers as once the automatic update expire the product no longer protects consumers against the latest virus threats.
The loss of this case is a setback to
McAfee and
Symantec who are facing competition from many free antivirus products and the pending release of
Microsoft antivirus sotware.
It is highly recommended that you maintain updated virus and spyware protection.