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Kazaa Issues A Consumer Alert

Kazaa has issued a Global Consumer Alert and special notice to its own customers after Symantec for the second time in recent weeks incorrectly identified a digital music service as being high risk, the company says.

As a result some Kazaa users with Symantec software installed were unable to use their music service because Symantec’s security software flagged the Kazaa software as adware. “While users of the service had never seen advertising on Kazaa, some of those who contacted us with their concerns were sufficiently spooked by Symantec’s unilateral action that they followed Symantec’s advice to remove the software."

Kazaa is a licensed music download and streaming service with over one million tracks licensed from the major record companies available to customers.

Symantec had justified turning off the music for some of Kazaa customers by flagging files in the Kazaa music plug in application as high risk due to the files being used for serving advertisements. As a result Kazaa customers or subscribers running Norton AV are having these files stripped from the application which prevents them from using the service.

Emanuel Krassenstein, Kazaa Chief Technical Officer said, "A cursory glance at the Kazaa website or a simple test of the service would be enough to prove that Symantec’s claim was just plain wrong. There is no basis on which the claim that Kazaa serves advertisements can be made, it is demonstrably false."

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Kazaa Issues A Consumer Alert