The US has announced plans to ban the sale of antivirus software made by Russian firm Kaspersky due to its alleged links to the Kremlin. Moscow’s influence over the company was found to pose a significant risk to US infrastructure and services, Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo said on Thursday.
She said that the US was compelled to take action due to Russia’s “capacity and… intent to collect and weaponise the personal information of Americans”.
“Kaspersky will generally no longer be able to, among other activities, sell its software within the United States or provide updates to software already in use,” the Commerce Department said. Kaspersky said it intended to pursue “all legally available options” to fight the ban, and denied it engaged in any activity that threatened US security.
The plan uses broad powers created by the Trump administration to ban or restrict transactions between US firms and tech companies from “foreign adversary” nations like Russia and China.
The plan will effectively bar downloads of software updates, resales and licensing of the product from 29 September and new business will be restricted within 30 days of the announcement.
Banning foreign services like TikTok and Kaspersky is counter to the First Amendment and the principles of free speech and association. I could understand issuing a warning, and I while wouldn’t use either service personally this seems like opening the door to censorship, and potentially banning other “foreign threats” such as Telegram, Wikileaks, etc.
Fully agreed