Symantec and Hotbar Resolve Adware Dispute

Symantec and Hotbar Resolve Adware Dispute

Symantec Corp. (Nasdaq: SYMC) today announced that it has reached a resolution in its dispute with Hotbar.com, Inc., and has dismissed its lawsuit against the company. Symantec filed a suit against the company in June 2005 asking the court for a ruling supporting Symantec’s right to detect certain Hotbar program files as low risk adware and to empower customers with the ability to remove the files from their computers.

As a result of out-of-court discussions, Hotbar now understands that Symantec will continue to detect and describe various Hotbar programs as low risk adware.

“Through our risk evaluation process, we classify various adware programs in three categories: low risk, medium risk, and high risk,” said David Cole, director, Symantec Security Response. “Low risk is something we generally recommend that users can ignore; medium risk is something we quarantine; and high risk is something we automatically remove. Hotbar’s programs operate in the low risk category and we leave it up to the customer to decide whether or not to remove the programs.”

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