Opinion: Security Companies' Automatic Renewals Are a Disgrace

Computerworld — Back in the 1980s and '90s, many people believed that antivirus vendors were writing and distributing viruses to create a need for their products. I cannot say unequivocally that there was no truth to that -- a lot of companies were trying to enter the market, and many disappeared quickly without a trace. But a conspiracy as big as imagined in the rumor mills would have been uncovered in the last 20 years. The fact is that a lot of people are cynical, and a significant number of them are prone to believe conspiracy theories. Personally, I tried to defend the antivirus product vendors whenever I heard such talk.

I'm not so charitable toward a current practice of antivirus vendors. Because of a recent experience, I have started advocating against subscribing to automatic renewals of antivirus software. I still believe that every system should run antivirus, anti-spyware and firewall software (yes, that includes Macs). Unfortunately, the two leading vendors , Symantec and McAfee, have shamed the industry by taking part in a scheme that is in many ways as bad as distributing viruses -- and certainly has the same motivation.

I submitted a version of this article earlier this week in which I complained about McAfee and what I consider to be one of the scummiest terms of service agreements I have ever seen. I've had to revise it a bit, but not to back down on my scorn for McAfee's scheme. The reason is that the next day, I saw an article saying that the New York attorney general had fined Symantec and McAfee $375,000 for their surreptitious automatic renewal clauses.

For me, this began when I received a notice from McAfee that it had taken the liberty of automatically renewing a license for software that I had no desire to renew. I found this liberty shocking

Making the matter worse, the message seemed fake. My initial reaction was to assume it was a phishing attempt, and I nearly deleted it. Red flags were a link, not to mcafee.com, but to a site with a similar name, mcafeehelp.com, and references to McAfee's international divisions.

Taking a cautious approach, I went to McAfee's Web site and found a customer service telephone number. To McAfee's credit, the customer service rep was efficient and canceled the automatic renewal without any trouble. Since I never sign up for automatic renewals of antivirus software, I asked the rep why McAfee had automatically renewed my subscription. The answer disturbed me: McAfee has built automatic renewal into its terms of service.

Continue Reading