Posted on 07/31/2016 8:11:51 AM PDT by dayglored
The 1970s called and wants its attitudes back
Kaspersky has apologized for displaying a sexist pop-up advert in its security software. It's not sorry about showing adverts on people's PCs, however.
The Russian giant's desktop software suite flings adverts, er, news items about Kaspersky products at users who have already paid for its applications. On Friday, one of these fine articles appeared on PCs, with a cartoon that many have found offensive.
"Want to be the man?" the cyber-poster asks, depicting a line of women lining up next to a bloke working on a computer. "Want to show the ladies your smarts? Bring them to the cybersecurity world and get rewarded."
The image was spread across social media on waves of outrage. Don't worry about chipping your nails, girls, get a guy to fix your PC for you, and make sure you make it worth his while, the banner is essentially saying, nudging and winking away like a reanimated Sid James.
It's a shame to see this one slip though quality control. After all, the security company began life with Natalia Kaspersky, the former wife of chief scientist Eugene Kaspersky, as CEO, and she built the company up from nothing to become one of the most prominent antivirus outfits on the planet.
Ms Kaspersky, who has since left the company, is a multimillionaire and has twice been declared the number-one IT executive in her home country by the Association of Russian Managers.
To its credit, the antivirus biz has recognized that it made a mistake and issued an apology.
"Earlier today an inappropriate image appeared in in our product. It has been removed and we deeply regret this mistake and sincerely apologize for the offence we caused with this image," a statement reads.
Incidentally, if you want to turn off the ads built into the antivirus suite, go to Settings > Additional > Notifications > Turn off the option about Kaspersky news.
Buying a cyber security system from Russia. Great idea!
It seems like an ad incorporating the twin stereotypes, “Men are d*cks,” and “Women are dopes,” would either be “offensive” to both sexes or cause both sexes to roll their eyes and shrug. What’s really fascinating is that the ad exec believed this would cause men to buy their products. I wonder if it was actually effective in terms of increased revenue.
Do any of you computer geeks know if Kaspersky is a good product?
It’s a RUSSIAN COMPANY. They still have total freedom to market their products as they wish. I doubt any of their complaints came from that part of the world - just Western Europe and North America.
(I know, I know, don’t get on Putin’s bad side - but my point wasn’t about that)
It’s great if you want to pick up hot chicks.
I love Kaspersky Internet Security. After all, who better to protect your stuff than a thief? The Russians are way up on us about being thieves. Kaspersky has caught stuff that the crummy McAfee let march right through. They also have a very responsive support team. I’ve been a Kaspersky fan for years.
Yeah, sooooo much riskier than a company controlled by rabid liberals and threats of IRS audits.
Chicks without viruses!
LOL - good one!
It’s quite objectively a much better idea than buying a US made product that would be required by the unlawful ‘national security letter’ technique to build in flaws for the NSA to exploit.
A great deal of the present-day vulnerability of software (and in some cases, hardware) systems is directly due to NSA demanding backdoors and loopholes, as Snowden showed us.
There’s a good reason why Malwarebytes is the industry standard.
Giggety.
Thanks for the ping.
Did sales revenue spike?
I’ve got Kaspersky and it works really well! I can open links in FR all day long, but if I decide to go swimming in the DU cesspool it blocks ALL LINKS. Refuses to even allow DU click bait adds to appear.
I like it! Bought it when I got my laptop at Best Buy in 2012.
Kaspersky is an excellent product. Rates high in every test I've seen.
The Best Antivirus Protection of 2016
Heheh..
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