Actually, they aren't, but should they be....

Read on for a little food for thought.

Virii cleanup/recovery cost establishments and businesses millions (? Billions - I've no idea) of dollars each year.

The establishments and business that do not have huge virii cleanup costs, tend to have purchased expensive corporate AV products to mitigate that risk - So the protection of establishments and business costs millions of dollars every year.

Most virii propagation occurs through unprotected personal and business computers.

There must be a cost/benefit argument to increase the cost of establishment/business internet connectivity and to have that connectivity protected from virii by the ISP.

Also every personal connection could be protected free of charge as well.

It could be done with a product similar to this : http://www.antionline.com/showthread...hreadid=248327

Using biological analogies, once a certain percentage of the population has an immunity to a virus (~85% if memory serves, but depends on virulence) then the whole population becomes effectively immune.

Overall this has to be a winner, since the spend required needs only to be at a similar level to AV revenues now, but since more organisations will be paying, unit prices will be cheaper, and the cost of cleanup should drop dramatically.

Perhaps the levy paid should include some insurance for the cleanup of any new virii that slip through the net before they are detected - paid by the AV provider that failed. This will act as an incentive for them to be up to date.

There may even be a case for government to provide the AV tool, on a cost of development (& update) vs cost to the economy of virri cleanup.

So, should Government provide AV free of charge?

Steve