Last month, a faulty software update from Symantec caused its Norton antivirus software to wrongly identify two system files in the Simplified Chinese version of Windows XP as malware and quarantine them, crippling the computers of nearly 50,000 customers. The company is ready to offer compensation and has announced that affected users are entitled to some free Norton anti-virus licenses.
"We are offering more than two weeks for the registration period which we believe is a reasonable period of time for customers to register," said Catriona Turner, a Symantec spokeswoman in Australia, in an e-mail response to questions. "If there are legitimate reasons why a particular customer is unable to register by July 15, we will give consideration to extending the date for that customer."
The move came after angry Chinese users demanded compensation and even began legal proceedings against the company, claiming to have suffered great losses from computer collapses.
Affected users can go to a special website where they have to answer a series of questions to validate that they were genuinely impacted by the bug. In addition to the 12-month Norton license extension, customers will also qualify for a free copy of the Norton Save & Restore 2.0 backup software. However, I guess many will consider receiving free copies of the software that caused the problem in the first place can barely qualify as compensation.