McAfee to compensate home users over XP update bug

McAfee says it will compensate customers affected by last week’s anti-virus update which unintentionally left some XP machines useless. The compensation will go beyond refunds and may cover some of the resulting repair or replacement costs.

Any customers whose machines have been “rendered inoperable or severely impaired” through the faulty update will get a free two-year extension to their McAfee subscription. That may prove expensive but is probably a smart move: rival companies are already swooping in on discontent business customers, and similar moves in the consumer market wouldn’t come as a surprise.

The company says it is also “committed to reimbursing reasonable expenses” for customers who’ve already incurred repair costs. The key word there is “reasonable”: the company will almost certainly take a case-by-case approach rather than have a blanket policy which could prejudice its case in a class action lawsuit, or leave it open to abuse by consumers putting in claims which could be described as optimistic.

Full details of the steps customers must take to apply for compensation will follow in a few days. In the meantime, users are encouraged to phone a toll-free number for live assistance with any machines which still haven’t recovered. If necessary, they’ll be posted a CD with a software fix.

It’s important to note the refund and compensation offers are specifically listed as being for “Home and Home Office Consumers”. The fallout among business users could be far more significant, and it’s probably understandable that McAfee isn’t making any promises in that regard.

The chances are that some, and probably many, businesses will have suffered losses beyond the cost of physically repairing machines, such as lost productivity. The potential claims could be huge and it seems inevitable McAfee will have to engage in legal debate about its licensing conditions and exactly which of these losses it can be held responsible for.

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