Kaspersky Files European Antitrust Complaint Against Microsoft
Russian AV-firm Kaspersky Lab has filed antitrust complaints in Europe against Microsoft, on the grounds that the tech giant is using Windows 10 to push it’s own anti-virus software over competing third party products. Kaspersky
Kaspersky initially filed against Microsoft with Russia’s Federal Antimonopoly Service (FAS), and has since filed complaints with the European Commission and the German Federal Cartel Office recently.
In a blog post, Kaspersky Lab founder Eugene Kaspersky claimed that “Microsoft uses its dominant position in the computer operating system (OS) market to fiercely promote its own – inferior – security software (Windows Defender) at the expense of users’ previously self-chosen security solution.” According to Kaspersky, Microsoft removes his company’s software when users switch to Windows 10, and installs its own Windows Defender AV product. Kaspersky also claims Microsoft does not provide enough time to fully test its latest Windows 10 upgrades to ensure existing software is compatible.
For their part, Microsoft, unsurprisingly, claims they’ve done nothing wrong. “Microsoft’s primary objective is to keep customers protected and we are confident that the security features of Windows 10 comply with competition laws,” the company said in a statement. “We’re always interested in feedback from other companies and we engage deeply with anti-malware vendors and have taken a number of steps to address their feedback. We reached out directly to Kaspersky a number of months ago offering to meet directly at an executive level to better understand their concerns, but that meeting has not yet taken place.”