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Does this product contravene UK consumer protection legislation?

Oldwilliam
This seems to be a very useful software tool for patching/warning the home user about vulnerabilities and about malware such as trojans, but as it's labelled as an "anti-virus" product, and no-one has ever yet demonstrated the existence of a virus for a *nix-based operating system (or else they would have claimed the substantial prize offered for many years by Netproject for infecting a properly-configured Linux box with a virus!), does this product breach UK consumer protection legislation? It certainly claims, by implication, that *nix viruses exist, the truth of which Sophos would have to demonstrate publicly (e.g. to the Advertising Standards Authority) if a complaint was made.
:1000073


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    Chrisnichols wrote:
    I don't think that YOU are breaking the law by downloading a piece of software that has been misrepresented. 

    Chris, thanks for taking the trouble to respond in detail... reading your points carefully, I actually don't disagree with any of the points you make.

    But you've neatly brought the subject back to the point at which I started... this product is something that will lead less-technical Mac users to believe that such a thing as a *nix or OS/X virus actually exists (as opposed to malware), and Sophos - knowing the truth - markets it as such. My original point is still sound: will Sophos be able to provide proof of the existence of a *nix or OS/X virus to the Advertising Standards Authority if the latter investigates a misrepresentation complaint?  That's the way the ASA approaches this sort of thing.

    I believe that the answer is most definitely: "No".  And that will mean that this product thereby contravenes UK consumer protection legislation - QED.

    :1000266
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    Chrisnichols wrote:
    I don't think that YOU are breaking the law by downloading a piece of software that has been misrepresented. 

    Chris, thanks for taking the trouble to respond in detail... reading your points carefully, I actually don't disagree with any of the points you make.

    But you've neatly brought the subject back to the point at which I started... this product is something that will lead less-technical Mac users to believe that such a thing as a *nix or OS/X virus actually exists (as opposed to malware), and Sophos - knowing the truth - markets it as such. My original point is still sound: will Sophos be able to provide proof of the existence of a *nix or OS/X virus to the Advertising Standards Authority if the latter investigates a misrepresentation complaint?  That's the way the ASA approaches this sort of thing.

    I believe that the answer is most definitely: "No".  And that will mean that this product thereby contravenes UK consumer protection legislation - QED.

    :1000266
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