First published: 31st July 2007
Russian anti-virus developer Kaspersky Lab is suing Chinese competitor Rising Tech Co. Ltd. for unfair competitive practices in an escalating dispute between the companies. The dispute started when Kaspersky mistakenly identified components of Rising's software as malicious in May 2007. Rising responded by claiming that Kaspersky had twenty-two false positives during a six-month period and showed contempt for Chinese users. Kaspersky responded with the lawsuit. Rising has upped the stakes by releasing another announcement accusing Kaspersky of another six false positives in two weeks.
The case will be heard in the Tianjin No.1 Intermediate People's Court at the end of July 2007.
Allan Dyer commented, "It is dissappointing to see two good anti-virus companies, and AVAR members, mud-slinging like this. The fact is anti-virus software cannot be perfect, and we can expect occasional flaws to get through the testing process. Two other anti-virus companies have had recent false positives for components of the Chinese version of Windows. Those flaws had an immediate, detrimental, effect on end-users. A false positive on a rival anti-virus product will only effect users with both products installed - which probably means they are testing professionals. Kaspersky made mistakes, and quickly fixed them, Rising apparently took affront because their own software was mis-identified. Please can everyone calm down and get back to serving the users?"
