The Microsoft "Conspiracy"?
Microsoft has admitted that their new anti-virus service, Windows Live OneCare mistakenly labeled Google's Gmail as a virus last week. The mishap occurred last week when Google made adjustments to the Gmail website according to Microsoft.
Microsoft has not explained what the changes were that caused the problem. Users of OneCare who visited the Gmail site were informed they had the BAT/BWG.A.
Suspicision's have been raised that Microsoft may have done this intentionally. In a blog post by Garret Rogers he wrote, "Now, either Gmail is a virus, or Microsoft is generating false positives. Some affected by this "virus" say other anti-virus products do not pick up the infection - to me, this is a bit suspicious.
Microsoft did apologize for the problem and said they were reviewing their processes to prevent this from happening in the future. In a statement Ziv Mador, response coordinator in the Microsoft Antimalware team said, "We will investigate how this false positive happened and take steps to minimize the risks of additional incidents"
Garret Rogers went on to write, "One thing is certain, those who use Windows Live OneCare and Gmail are all worried they have a virus they can't get rid of. Some might even get frustrated enough to either quit using Gmail or Windows Live OneCare depending on which one they think is to blame.
We now know that the mistake was on Microsoft's side. No company seems to be immune from these types of occurrences. Just last week Google accidentally sent out the Kama Sutra worm to 50,000 video email subscribers.
The speculation that this was done intentionally by Microsoft does not make much sense. In the end they would have to know that this kind of incident would damage their reputation more than it would Google's.
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