A German court has rejected the demand of installer developer Freemium.com to no longer flag their software as unwanted by antivirus software of Avira. The judge ruled that toolbars are correctly identified as unwanted software.
Avira's software warns users when crapware is bundled with the software they actually wanted to install. Freemium offers an installer on popular download sites so that publishers can earn money from downloads by bundling software with the applications users actually wanted to download.
Freemium filed a cease-and-desist letter against Avira GmbH claiming anti-competitive practices, and demanding that Avira should not be allowed to block the downloads. The judge disagreed and Avira’s antivirus software is allowed to continue to provide a safety notice flagging these downloads as ‘potentially unwanted applications’.
