Kaspersky questions the value of parental controls

Apparently parental controls are "bullshit", according to a director at Kaspersky.

The controls, which led last month to Microsoft's co-president Jim Allchin confidently asserting that he was happy to let his seven-year-old son on his locked down computer without antivirus, were roundly dismissed by Kaspersky product director Veniamin Levtsov over a hearty Russian lunch on a Kaspersky Labs press trip to Moscow.

"Parental controls are bullshit," said Levtsov. "They only work for 10 to 14 year old boys."

Apparently this small demographic is relatively unimportant. Kaspersky will not be including parental controls in its next offering, due out January, but eventually will be forced to due to the fact that other antivirus vendors will follow Microsoft's lead.

Microsoft has been making much of parental controls, trumpeting them as a wondrous security feature.

"We will include parental controls eventually because others are -- but we'll just be ticking boxes," Levstov told ZDNet UK.