To: Rowan Trollope, Senior Vice President, Symantec Corporation
Re: Norton User forum post about Safe Search 03-17-2009 08:01 PM
I have read your post concerning the “search” situation, and would like to comment on some of the points so that I can be clear about what my concerns are. This is going to be somewhat long, but please bear with me. I have been “partnered” with Symantec and Norton for well over ten years, always recommending and installing Symantec products at every opportunity. I think I have a right to have the floor for a bit.
You say there has been negative feedback regarding Safe Search. I have no problem with Safe Search. I think a safe search is a good thing. I, too, believe that Safe Search is a valuable tool. The manner in which it is implemented, which is through Ask.com, is troubling to me.
I was not surprised by the addition of the search box to the Norton toolbar. What surprised and shocked me was the name I saw on the box: Ask Search.
I want to explain what my concern really is, and would welcome an explanation addressing my concern. My concern is that Symantec has partnered with one search provider, and Symantec chose a search provider that I do not like and that I choose not to use.
Should I use the search box, in order to have the safest search experience, and at the same time give my stamp of approval to Ask.com, which I do not like or recommend?
Or do I take my chances, and turn off the security features, opening myself up to more potential security threats?
Symantec is surely receiving financial compensation from this partner. In return for the financial compensation, the partner will enjoy the endorsement of one of the leading security providers. The endorsement comes in three forms: 1. the inclusion of the partner’s name on a search box embedded within Symantec software; 2. the fact that when using the search box, search queries are funneled to the search provider’s website; 3. the Safe Search feature will only be at its VERY BEST when using the search box that channels search queries to the search provider that Symantec has partnered with.
The endorsement, whether intentional or implied, is there. Symantec is telling its users that Ask.com is the best way to go when searching the web. Symantec has taken a position in the search engine wars, and Symantec did it for the money. Now I come to a huge part of my concern: as the traffic to Ask.com increases, Ask.com’s market share will increase, so the financial compensation to Symantec will increase. When that happens, Symantec is going to have to do some things along the way to keep the partner happy so that the money will continue to flow, because partners have a say in how things are done. Ask.com will ask for more than a search box. This scenario will inevitably affect me and my use of the Internet, and my use of Symantec products.
Come to think of it, I’m already affected. Not only am I concerned about security threats, now I’m wondering why my security provider partnered with a search provider that is “stuck in fourth place in the U.S. search market with a market share of roughly 4%”, and is telling me that this is the best way to go to provide me with the SAFEST search experience. Symantec chose the number four search provider for a partner, and is telling me that this was the best way to go? Source: http://www.usatoday.com/tech/news/2009-02-03-ask-symantec_N.htm
Please know that I would be saying a lot of the same things if Symantec had chosen Live, Yahoo, or Google. I do not like the idea of my security provider siding up with one search provider. That move will always have me wondering what is going on behind the scenes to further the interests of the two partners, and at what cost to me. In any case, the decision to partner with the fourth place contender is a little suspect to me.
The point is made in your post that “Moving forward, Norton Internet Security and Norton 360 will now ship with the search box disabled by default.” That is good, I suppose, but how do I disable the partnership between Symantec and Ask.com?
I am fully aware that the search box is not an Ask toolbar. I know that it isn’t Ask code. When it is said that it is all Norton code, the picture comes to mind of a worm infiltrating a network, slowly moving from system to system, until it is firmly embedded and entrenched, and has made itself part of the network. Ask.com is firmly embedded in Norton code, and Ask.com didn’t have to do anything tricky to accomplish this.
Do I blame Ask.com for any of this? No, I don’t. It was a great move for them. They didn’t have to sneak a toolbar onto my computer to channel search traffic to their website. My security provider did it for them.
At this very moment, I have a client that is setting up a new office, and is installing a new server and five workstations. It’s not a huge amount of money. In the past, I managed a network for this client that had a server and 27 workstations. He always used Symantec products, because I told him it was the best. I cannot, however, say that to him right now. I am currently uncertain as to the integrity of the company I have channeled so much money and loyalty to. That uncertainty is very saddening to me.
I speak for myself, and those who look to me for advice. Any partnership with Ask.com is unacceptable. Any partnership with a single search provider is unacceptable. Any partnership with any outside entity that could influence, and possibly corrupt, Symantec’s mission to protect computer users is unacceptable.
To a lot of Norton users the toolbar and the search box are the issue. Some have berated those of us who object with statements like “Just turn the thing off! What’s the big deal?” The big deal is this, my dear sir. There are those of us, and we are many, who aren’t looking so much at the appearance or absence of a search box. We are looking way beyond the box, and we see what lies behind it.
For instance, I just typed a search query into the search box located in the upper right hand corner of my Firefox browser. The box is displaying the G that we all recognize as Google, indicating that Google is my default search provider of choice. When I pressed enter, a page of results came up on a Google page. Guess where else the search query turned up? Yes, the words I typed into the Firefox browser search box, which I intended only for Google, turned up in the Ask Safe Search box. I tried it several times, and whatever I type in to the browser search box, it is duplicated in the Ask Search box.
So, even if I don’t type the search directly into the Ask Safe Search box, the search query is still fed into the Ask Safe Search box. And I’m told that the only way that search queries are sent to Ask.com is if I use the Safe Search box, which I take to mean that I would have to type something into the Ask Safe Search box. But I don’t have to fill in the Safe Search box. Symantec is doing that for me. Or is Symantec doing that for Ask.com? And you want me to believe that if the Ask Safe Search box isn’t visible, that search queries aren’t fed to Ask.com?
The following words are attributed to Enrique Salem:
“The company’s size has afforded it the opportunity to successfully delve in multiple areas – security, storage management, system management – but Symantec must choose one primary focus, said Salem. In his new role, Salem wants to redirect Symantec to security given it’s a matter of ongoing concern to organizations that fear losing critical customer and employee data and intellectual property.” Source: http://www.networkworld.com/news/2009/031609-next-symantec-ceo-to-focus.html
Tell Enrique to hitch up his pants. The ride may bet bumpy. He bragged in one interview that Symantec’s sales are larger than sales of many competitors combined. We’ll see at the end of the year how true that still is.
In your post you say “The last thing we want to do is cause any frustration with our loyal, technical users.”
Symantec, has indeed, done the last thing you wanted to do.
And it has still not been explained to me why it was necessary to partner with ANY search provider in order to keep me safe. In all of the responses I have seen from Symantec employees, there is a lot of spin directing users to the search box issue, when that isn’t the real issue. Once again, the big smart corporation has underestimated the intelligence of regular people.
And you know what? By steering people away from Symantec, I won’t break the company. I might only cost Symantec $2000 in sales this year. So I’m really not a threat since I’m not a major player. But how will it add up if there are a million people like me? Two million? What if there are 4 million people like me that direct that $2000 to a Symantec competitor this year? Who knows how many people there are, like me, that just don’t buy the rhetoric?
And how will I know, since I’m not a programming genius, whether or not data is still being fed to Ask.com after I wipe Norton off of my systems? Is data being fed now, or not? Up until a couple of weeks ago, I would have never had these questions about systems that I had installed Symantec protection on. I trusted Symantec without question. Maybe what a friend of mine said is true, that we only have the “illusion” of security.
Why did Symantec have to go and partner up with a fourth rate search provider? Why?
Don Hanson