"Sometimes she will then sometimes she won't...............

[nihil]

Hi |3lack|ce

I don't think that they have paid out anything yet? The $2.8m is purely their internal costs so far.

My calculations were based on corporates having a couple of guys in over the week-end and smaller SOHO customers getting in an engineer.

I estimated that to be $20-25M.

Obviously they are trying to cut their losses

[Egaladeist]

Like I said earlier I think this really boils down to Trend Micro trying to form a quick and early settlement in order to take advantage of the situation before it has a chance to snowball...

they're relying heavily on the fact the japanese are not traditionally a people who sue...this way they appease by settling for costs and everyone walks away reasonably intact...

if they wait too long and allow for one loss ( loss rarther than law is being used on purpose ) suit to arise...they know that it can very quickly snowball into several suits...loss suits can put even well companies peering into chapter 11 bankruptcy...because that's where the real money is...

because losses are often hard to calculate...short term losses, long term losses, reputation losses, and various other forms of punitive damages are often left in the hands of lawyers who are looking to get the biggest winfall possible....and judges are usually eager to oblige as large winfalls mean media exposure...and we all know how media exposure can benefit the judges as well as the lawyers in establishing reputations.

Eg

[nihil]

Here is some more:

http://www.informationweek.com/story...1518&tid=13692

This one is interesting because it has North American reactions.............

Particularly the travel agent...............took him out for a full Saturday's trading..................not good I would say. OK loyal customer & regulars might live with it but not first time or casual ones?

Hmmm.................I just recalled a time when I saw this really seriously cheap option to renew PC-Cillin online. So I gave them the details and got to the bit where it wanted to know where I was , and I put "London". Then it wanted a country, and gave me the option of USA or Canada.............so I put "Canada"..........it worked, although I was not in Ontario at the time

[Egaladeist]

Hi nihil,

This could be very devastating if the " Trend " continues!







I've never heard of a London in the US...must not be too big...two cows and a mule

Eg

[|3lack|ce]

Dunno, but we have a 'New London' texas - look it up on the internet sometime. What happened there is the reason there's odor added to natural gas here in the US.

[nihil]

Hi Eg~

Most Londons in the US will be "New London", like I was born and raised in York, and they have New York.

I have found one for you though

http://ci.london.oh.us/

pop. 8,711

As to the thread, I raised it, because I feel that some industry precedents are going to be set here. Symantec and McAfee have both made boo boos in the past and have gotten away with it. I think that there is probably a fair bit of "closing of ranks" going on here?

On the other hand we will have major corporates and their insurers watching very carefully.

If this closed ware supplier can hide behind their EULA, it will prove that closed ware is not safer (commercially), and open the gates for open source?

I see major ramifications?

[Egaladeist]

Hi l3acklce,

Haven't checked it out yet but the link nihil gave looks like a quaint little mid-western town...lots of flags...I remember vacationing down at the five-finger-lakes in upstate New York during the bi-centennial in 1976...I never seen so many flags...and John Denver was everywhere

Hi nihil,

I feel that some industry precedents are going to be set here

I think you're right...even if this doesn't snowball, it's enough to scare them into a few changes. They're putting their best spin face on it now but behind the scenes I'll bet they're crossing their fingers and buying a few lucky charms for their pockets.

Eg

[nihil]

Hmmm,

This is a licence I found for Trend in Europe. It is under Irish law, but other countries such as Germany are mentioned.

I am not a qualified lawyer, but have a reasonable working knowledge through accountancy and IT; at least of commercial and contract law.

It looks to me as if they could be successfuly sued over here...............err.............. "gross negligence" would seem like a favourite

http://uk.trendmicro-europe.com/glob...conditions.pdf

I am not sure, but my experience with the update suggests that there is probably a separate contractual regime for North America?

It looks as if they may be rather more exposed that it seemed at first sight.

Could this possibly add a new parameter to the commercial AV selection model?............liability?

[Striek]

Well whether or not they can be succesfully sued is rather a moot point when you consider how much business they could lose if they don't offer some kind of pittance for their mistake. I would think a mistake like this would be "just cause" for any client to terminate a contract with them, without penalties.

Beyond that, should they not offer reimbursement, they will have earned a permanent reputation for not looking after clients. A reputation like that is quite impossible to get rid of. So the financial losses must be balanced between the immediate cost to Trend and the expected future losses due to the loss of business. Apparnelty they feel that the future losses from Japanese customers will be more damaging than that from overseas customers?

Or are they simply biased towards domestic clients?

[Goitz]

Mayhaps it is not just the money side and the customer base that triggered the damage control procedure into overdrive. It's "giri" (honor) and the concept of "loss of face", in this case, corporate face.

As to liability, maybe not... the fine print in the pro-forma agreements ensures that minimum exposure to culpablity is ascribed to the service provider.

It's a good heads-up, though; for all AV users.