Security News > 2020 > June > ESET rushes to defend rival Malwarebytes in legal war sparked by vendor upset at 'unwanted program' labeling
The flurry of legal arguments represents an effort to ensure blanket immunity protections outlined in Section 230 of America's Communications Decency Act - which Malwarebytes is relying on - remain as broad as possible.
In 2017, a district court judge in San Jose, California, dismissed a complaint brought by Enigma Software against its competitor Malwarebytes.
The judge affirmed Malwarebytes was immune from liability under 47 U.S.C. 230(c)(2)(B) of the CDA. That section of the law exempts service providers from liability for providing others with means to take action against material - identified in 230(c)(2)(A) - "That the provider or user considers to be obscene, lewd, lascivious, filthy, excessively violent, harassing, or otherwise objectionable, whether or not such material is constitutionally protected."
The security experts, mostly law and technology professors, argue that the Ninth Circuit decision "Permits spurious legal claims based on mere allegations of 'anticompetitive animus' by vendors whose products have been identified as threats," thereby discouraging security vendors from aggressively identifying threats.
The ESET brief echoes a point made by the security experts about the prevalence of malware that claims to be security software.