Recently I reported on iDownload’com’s Virus Hunter, which bears a strong resemblance to the highly regarded BitDefender. (See “iDownload: A case history in unethical marketing” for more details.) I wrote to BitDefender and asked them to explain the relationship. Today, I received this reply from a spokesperson for BitDefender:
iDownload is indeed our partner and we license our technology to them; iDownload licenses further our technology to their customers under the name of Virus Hunter.
The marketing and sales operations are entirely iDownload’s responsibility (including refund policy, pricing etc). We have notified the company about the conditions under which the certifications can be used and hope such situations will be avoided in the future (as you see the respective references have been removed already).
Since I published my story two days ago, iDownload has removed the unauthorized reference to ICSA Labs.