Kaspersky Lab Statement on the Application Approved by the Federal Antimonopoly Service

The Federal Antimonopoly Service (FAS) of Russia has approved an application filed by Kaspersky Lab regarding Microsoft’s abuse of its dominant position in the market, in particular, the creation of competitive advantage for its own anti-virus software and the exclusion of competing security software manufacturers.

As a result of these actions, Microsoft has created a situation whereby competing security software manufacturers, including Kaspersky Lab, are unable to fully comply with their obligations towards users, which leads to users being less protected, limits users’ choice in terms of security solution providers and creates financial losses for Microsoft’s competitors. For example:

• When a user migrates to Windows 10, and the current version of their antivirus software is not compatible with this operating system, the user is not informed in advance of the need to install a compatible version. Instead, without the explicit consent of the user, the antivirus software is removed and Windows Defender is switched on by default.
• Microsoft provides security vendors with new RTM Windows 10 builds several days before their official release, compared with the 2 months they gave for Windows 8 and Windows 7. Several days are not enough for developers to modify security solutions properly, to make them compatible and effective against all types of cyberthreats from the day of release, leaving users without the level of protection they have chosen and paid for.

Kaspersky Lab has a long-term and successful partnership with Microsoft, and decided to appeal to the legal bodies in various countries after months of unsuccessful negotiations and exhausting multiple options to try to resolve the situation with Microsoft directly. We are starting with the European Commission and the Federal Antimonopoly Service of the Russian Federation.