Sale of VirusTotal: A Good Thing or a Bad Thing ?

[Seeker47]

http://dottech.org/79127/virustotal-is-now-owned-by-google-google-just-bought-virustotal/

I'm not sure . . . . On the one hand, they won't lack for funding and support. But then, I'm no fan of Google's standard operating procedure. If that's a drawback, I suppose we can always navigate over to VT from https://us4.startpage.com/ or their proxy service.

[jman98]

http://dottech.org/79127/virustotal-is-now-owned-by-google-google-just-bought-virustotal/

I'm not sure . . . . On the one hand, they won't lack for funding and support. But then, I'm no fan of Google's standard operating procedure.

If you feel that way then nothing any of us could say could possibly change your mind. And I do NOT share your opinion of Google, for whatever that is worth.

On my previous job we used a third party anti-spam solution and Microsoft bought out the company. I don't remember their name any more, unfortunately. I can tell you that we had a big relationship with the company they bought out (we may have been their number 1 customer) and they assured us that this was only for the good and that Microsoft would bring tons of advantages to the table It didn't really work out that way. Within months of the deal going through, Microsoft forced a technology change on the acquired company and I remember there being some truly horrific outages of the service as a result of this change. Microsoft offered no credible explanation of the outages nor any guarantees that it wouldn't happen again. Then again, not too horribly long ago Microsoft bought Skype and as a user I can tell you that Skype is significantly better under Microsoft's ownership than Ebay's. So you never know. My experience (I currently work at a company bought out by a larger one) is that the less the acquiring company monkeys with the bought company, the better it works out.

[Hoser Rob]

I agree with the OP about Google's policies, but regarding privacy. I wouldn't worry one bit about them buying an anti virus company.

Never assume that a smaller company is more ethical and less rapacious than a large one. Often they're worse.

I totally agree with jman on the last point ... as long as they don't send in the 'efficiency' experts to tell them how to run a business they themselves don't know how to run it works out fine.

[Seeker47]

Yes, it was the (Google) Privacy / Tracking policies I was referring to as being objectionable.

. . . the less the acquiring company monkeys with the bought company, the better it works out.

And I agree with that. You see it all the time -- with all sorts of businesses -- that the acquiring company thinks they know better than what put the acquired company on the map, or achieved their success. But then they make big changes, and go on to prove that they don't.