[photopress:symantec_china.jpg,full,alignright]Symantec, the world’s largest security software provider, has a compensation package for Chinese users in recompense for a faulty update to its Norton anti-virus software, which paralyzed many computers across China last month.
Symantec said individual users who were affected will have the period of validity for the anti-virus software extended by 12 months, plus free data backup and restoration software. Affected enterprise users will get permits to use Ghost Solution Suite.
This move is undoubtedly in response to the angry Chinese users who demanded compensation and even began legal proceedings against the company.
So what went wrong? The symptoms were easy to spot. The updating of the Chinese version of the Norton software, which started on May 18, wrongly identified two critical files of the Microsoft XP operating system as malicious codes and deleted them, causing computers to collapse.
Symantec states 50,000 users were badly affected, ‘which is different from media reports’. True. The reports suggested millions of computers in China have been affected by the faulty update and some users said they suffered great losses.
A Chinese lawyer named Liu Shihui is seeking RMB1,644 ($213) in compensation for losses caused when his computer was paralyzed due to the update. A Beijing client also filed a lawsuit seeking compensation of RMB50,000 for data lost from his laptop.
An on-line survey by http://www.sina.com.cn, a leading Chinese portal website, showed 74% of respondents said they would think twice before buying Norton anti-virus software in future.
Source: China View