Last week, fourteen cybersecurity experts, infosec biz ESET, and tech advocacy groups the Internet Association and TechFreedom filed friend-of-the-court briefs urging the US Supreme Court to review a 2019 appeals court ruling against antivirus maker Malwarebytes.
The flurry of legal arguments represents an effort to ensure blanket immunity protections outlined in Section 230 of America's Communications Decency Act (CDA) – which Malwarebytes is relying on – remain as broad as possible.
In 2017, a district court judge in San Jose, California, dismissed a complaint brought by Enigma Software against its competitor Malwarebytes. Enigma filed its complaint because Malwarebytes' tools labelled Enigma's anti-spyware app a "potentially unwanted program," and asked users whether they wanted to remove it, if it was detected on a system.
Enigma claimed that its Spyhunter software was legitimate and posed no threat to users. However, Malwarebytes prevailed in court when the judge dismissed the case, citing 2009's Zango v. Kaspersky decision. The judge affirmed Malwarebytes was immune from liability under 47 U.S.C. § 230(c)(2)(B) of the CDA.
