Tuesday, January 11, 2005

and in crazyworld, people can go to jail for finding bugs... did i say crazyworld? i meant france...

on fark this would probably get the [Asinine] tag... if you haven't heard about guillermito vs. tegam then count yourself lucky for the bliss that is your ignorance...

long story short: tegam produced a very, very bad anti-virus product, called viguard, and made classic snake-oil claims... guillermito (ok, not his real name but i always go by the first name i know a person by) produces a report that documents how bad the anti-virus is, complete with exploits... tegam sues guillermito for counterfeiting/criminal copyright infringement... guillermito faces 4 months probation in france (kind of a long way to go to see your probation officer when you currently live in the states and are working at harvard - assuming probation works in a similar fashion there) and a hefty fine...

what is the moral of this story? do you think it's that you should keep your mouth shut when companies LIE to the public? do you think it's that france's justice system is borked?

no, the moral of this story is that tegam cannot silence criticism with lawyers - the publicity from this case will point everyone towards the truth - any possibility of them re-establishing secrecy for their product's problems is gone - the only purpose the lawsuit can serve is to punish someone for telling the truth - and on the internet things have a habit of never going away, ever...

the free market works best in the presence of an informed consumer... tegam may win in a court of law, but the court of public opinion is a different beast entirely... vote with your wallet, folks...

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