Kaspersky Lab files more antitrust complaints against Microsoft
Russian security vendor Kaspersky Lab has filed more antitrust complaints against Microsoft, this time with the European Commission and the German Federal Cartel Office.
Kaspersky claims Microsoft is harming third-party antivirus vendors by bundling Windows Defender with Windows 10. Kaspersky filed a complaint with Russia's Federal Antimonopoly Service last year over the same issue. Russian authorities opened an investigation based on that complaint in November 2016.
A Microsoft spokesperson said the company reached out to Kaspersky after its initial complaints last year, but that no meeting between the two had happened so far. Microsoft's statement:
"Microsoft's primary objective is to keep customers protected and we are confident that the security features of Windows 10 comply with competition laws. We're always interested in feedback from other companies and we engage deeply with antimalware 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."
Kaspersky officials, in a June 6 blog post announcing the filing of the latest complaints, said they are seeking "fair and healthy competition."
Kaspersky officials maintain that it is impossible to completely uninstall Windows Defender. They also say the upgrade to Windows 10 may have invalidated security programs already installed on users devices by uninstalling drivers. Kaspersky also says Microsoft is not providing third-party vendors with sufficient time to certify their products with new feature updates to Windows 10.