UK’s competition watchdog, the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA), is suing Norton, the popular anti-virus product developer, for failure to share the requested details about how its subscription renewal system works.
According to a press release by the CMA, the agency has received multiple reports from consumers that blame Norton for automatically renewing contracts and forcing them to cover the costs even though they no longer needed or wanted to continue using the firm’s software products.
To investigate these reports, the CMA requested Norton to hand over key information about how the renewal system works, but the software developer has failed to comply with the request. The CMA considers this to be a breach of Norton’s legal obligations, so the only way to obtain the requested information is to drag the firm in court.
As Andrea Coscelli, Chief Executive at CMA stated:
It is indeed surprising to see Norton refusing to take a transparent approach and instead chooses a path that will result in great amounts of negative publicity, yet here we are. For history, CMA asked for the following information:
Norton hasn’t made any official announcements or comments on the legal action that CMA has taken against them, so we don’t know where they stand on the matter right now. We will update this piece once the security software maker shares a comment with us.