Re: Symantec's Underhanded Marketing Practices

On Jun 3, 7:48 am, "da pickle" <jcpickels@(nospam)hotmail.com> wrote:
Alan C. Lawhon wrote:
Whatever the case, I'm curious about something: Is this practice
common among the various software "security" vendors, (i.e. to
intentionally make their product(s) "incompatible" with a competitors
virtually identical product), or is what Symantec is doing [to Zone
Alarm] unique? This smacks of truly anti-competitive behavior which
ought to spark a lawsuit.

I am very interested in your comments. My first impression is that if
Symantec was truly doing what you said, blocking specific competitors
products, then folks like Zone Alarm would be all over them with injunctions
and other bad legal stuff. Then I wondered if buried in the "terms and
agreement" language could people be "agreeing" to such activity when they
install the software.

I would think that no software would have to be "compatible" with competing
software and I am not very well versed in "internet law" but this is an
interesting experience you are having. I would like to know a lot more
about the Symantec stuff as well as the Turbo Tax stuff and any other
examples of such activity.

I sent your experience to my brother who teaches at SMU in their graduate
school. He is in the engineering, business and computer science department.
I will be interested if he can shed some light on this.

You may have stumbled on something "everyone" already knows about ... except
you and me ... or you may have discovered something that fewer people know
about. Maybe your experience is "coincidental" or something less sinister.
I would like to hear from others.

What will be more interesting to me will be the response I receive to
the email I've sent to Zone Labs. It seems very peculiar that
Checkpoint Software, (the owners of Zone Labs and Zone Alarm Pro),
inserted a hyperlink to one of their servers in "Add/Remove Programs"
specifically requesting that you (voluntarily) contact them with your
reason(s) for removing their product. However, when you click that
hyperlink, Internet Explorer magically fails to display the page.
This was after I had installed Norton "Confidential" - a bundled
software product sold with the Norton SystemWorks upgrade - which
supposedly checks for "fraudulent" web sites. The Zone Alarm "survey
page" (where ZA consumers could be expected to enumerate their
reason(s) for uninstalling the software - and [maybe] explain that
'Symantec is telling me [during the installation process] that I must
uninstall Zone Alarm before System Works will install'." (This is
EXACTLY the message that I got from Symantec. They cited "Zone Alarm
Pro" explicitly during the installation process as "incompatible
software" and further stated that I must remove it, otherwise System
Works WOULD NOT install.)

I don't know if something strange (or "coincidental") is going on
here, but this is the first time I have ever run into a situation
where one software vendor [as part of the installation process]
informs me that their software will not work (or install) unless or
until you remove a competitor's software. You have to hand it to
Symantec though. That's one way to get rid of your competition: Make
sure that paying customers can't use your product if a competing
product is already installed on your computer. The only thing
comparable to this that I can think of would be General Motors or Ford
selling a car that magically fails to start if the purchaser just
happens to own a Toyota.

I'll be interested to hear what your brother has to say about this
too.

Alan C. Lawhon
Huntsville, Alabama



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