The company yesterday filed suit against Hotbar.com of New York, a marketing company that makes software that tracks web use and displays advertising, a preemptive strike after many weeks of conflict that will likely prompt Hotbar to counter-sue.
They contacted us several months ago over our detection of their product, and over the last several months they have tried to coerce us to remove that detection, said Joy Cartun, senior director of legal affairs for Symantec.
More recently, the company has been threatening to sue Symantec, she said. The Symantec complaint says Hotbar has threatened to sue five times. The security giant took the initiative and sued first, seeking a declaratory ruling.
Symantec is not seeking any money or suggesting that Hotbar is acting illegally, Cartun said, merely for a ruling that Symantec is not breaking the law by letting users of its antispyware software detect, block and remove Hotbar.
Hotbar’s software is installed when people download graphical skins or other gizmos for their web browser. They actually have to confirm installation, but Symantec claims the installation process is confusing and difficult to abort.
Spokespeople for Florida-based Hotbar did not respond to a request for comment before press time yesterday, but the company has been fiercely defending its practices in recent months, sending cease and desist letters to other antispyware companies.
Sunbelt Software Inc is among them. Hotbar sent Sunbelt a C&D on May 10, saying Sunbelt’s detection of Hotbar as spyware/adware causes severe and irreparable damages and said it would be forced to take legal action.
Sunbelt’s lawyers replied in a letter with an exhaustive examination of the software and the conclusion that it is fully justified in offering Hotbar and its related programs as a detection to users. Sunbelt classifies Hotbar as low-risk adware.
Hotbar argued in early May that its software can easily be removed via Windows’ Add/Remove Programs function, that users have to agree to (or click through) a EULA before its software is installed, and that antispyware vendors Microsoft, Panda, McAfee, Spyware Doctor, Fortinet, and Lavasoft do not detect it as a threat.
At least one of those companies, Fortinet, has since started detecting Hotbar as a potentially unwanted program. One of the company’s security devices even blocked this reporter from visiting the various pages on Hotbar.com yesterday.
Richard Hanke, vice president of product marketing at Fortinet, said he agreed with Symantec’s stand. We should have the right to categorize any program, he said. It’s up to our customers to tell us whether it’s right or wrong.
The suit, while not the first between an antispyware vendor and a disgruntled grayware maker, could bring some clarity to what antispyware software can and cannot do.
Hotbar is in the grayest of gray areas. The company says it does not associate or store any web usage data or search information with any personally identifiable information but that it does monitor the websites you visit to display relevant ads.
