14 DAY TRIAL // NetQin, a Chinese company developing mobile antivirus solutions is accused of using unethical business methods similar to those used by scareware distributors.
The Chinese Central Television (CCTV) reported last week that NetQin covertly installs a malicious application alongside its antivirus program and then asks for RMB2 (US$0.30) in order to clean it.
The app in question comes from a company called Feiliu and claims to be a download tool, however, it causes a lot of performance issues on Symbian-based phones.
According to ZDNet Asia, the Feiliu app also uninstalls antivirus programs found on devices except for NetQin's.
The CCTV team responsible for the journalistic investigation revealed that NetQin has invested significantly in Feiliu. In addition, the founders of the two companies appear to have been classmates.
Both NetQin and Feiliu have denied the accusations and called CCTV's report inaccurate. Nevertheless, all three Chinese mobile operators, China Mobile, China Telecom and China Unicom, removed NetQin Mobile Anti-Virus from their app stores.
Nokia also terminated its partnership with the AV vendor that involved distributing the antivirus program preinstalled on some of its models in China. Even though both NetQin's Mobile Anti-Virus and Feiliu's app work on Symbian and Android, only handsets running the former were affected.
Only a few days ago NetQin filed for an IPO on the New York Stock Exchange. Now the company is investigated by several Chinese government agencies including the country's Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT).
This is not the first time when Chinese antivirus companies are accused of unethical business practices. Last year, a police official received a suspended death sentence after taking bribes from local AV vendor Rising to harass a competing company and its CEO.