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Symantec participates in shaping public policy around the world with regard to issues that affect its industry, business, products, and customers. We partner with business and trade organizations and work with local, regional, and national lawmakers and government agencies to influence policy and legislation. Our public policy involvement allows Symantec to better accomplish its mission to protect the integrity and unimpeded flow of the world’s information.
The public policy issues we face are broad and cover many aspects of consumer privacy, online safety, and intellectual property protection.
Symantec believes that harmonized privacy legislation can create a simplified, uniform, but flexible legal framework to protect individuals and businesses. Effective regulation would provide protection for consumers from inappropriate collection and misuse of their personal information and also enable legitimate businesses to use information to promote economic and social value. In principle, such legislation would address:
For more information about Symantec’s efforts to protect consumer and customer privacy, please visit our Privacy and Data Protection Web site.
Symantec supports efforts to curb unwanted and illicit spyware. We believe that anti-spyware legislation must be carefully crafted in order to protect consumers yet still preserve legitimate technologies. In the United States, Symantec was active in efforts to ensure that anti-spyware legislation at the Federal and State level does not restrict certain features legitimately sought by Symantec consumers.
The issue of spyware is also an emerging international topic. Symantec briefed government officials and industry leaders on spyware at the first security seminar organized by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), a multilateral organization comprising the leading global economies, and the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC), which represents the United States and Asia-Pacific rim economies.
Policymakers, particularly in the United States, continue to seek ways to address consumer complaints about unsolicited commercial email, known as spam. Symantec has worked closely with the U.S. Federal government and several states, including the Wisconsin governor’s office and the Wisconsin State Senate sponsor regarding anti-spam legislation. Symantec has also developed an anti-spam prosecution solution to help states collect, interpret, and present the necessary data for the successful prosecution of spammers.
On an international level, Symantec participated in the drafting of the OECD Anti-spam tool kit launched in 2006 to support the development of an inclusive and coherent answer to the spam issue. The Anti-Spam “Toolkit” is the first step in a broader initiative to help policy makers, regulators and industry players orient their policies relating to spam solutions and restore trust in the Internet and e-mail.
Every year, billions of dollars are lost to software piracy, which is the illegal distribution and/or copying of software for personal and/or business use. The harmful effects of software piracy reach far beyond the software publisher. While companies suffer a direct loss of sales, consumers also suffer because companies are often forced to raise prices or cut research and development funding to make up for revenue shortfalls due to piracy. According to industry estimates, in 2007 the global market value of software piracy climbed to an astonishing $40 billion. While piracy rates around the world have fallen modestly, the total dollar value of pirated software continues to rise.
Symantec works closely with governments around the world to strengthen copyright protection for software, both in digital and physical form. Symantec is also a World Wide member of the Business Software Alliance (BSA), an organization formed in 1988 that spans 65 countries across North America, Europe, Asia, and Latin America. The mission of BSA is to advance free and open world trade for legitimate business software by advocating strong protection of intellectual property. Click here to learn more about Symantec’s anti-piracy efforts.
Our best information about software pirates comes from our consumers. If you know of or suspect an organization or an individual of committing software piracy, either through conventional distribution or over the internet (web or ftp site), please let us know. You can fill out a report at our anti-piracy Web site.
As we have grown over the past several years—we are now the fourth-largest software company in the world—we have become increasingly engaged in the political processes of the countries in which we make and sell our products. The following examples highlight just a few of our ongoing global privacy and protection-oriented public policy efforts.
In the United States, Symantec’s political action committee (PAC) makes contributions to candidates for the United States House of Representatives and the United States Senate. The PAC is funded by voluntary donations made by senior-level Symantec employees and company shareholders. Symantec evaluates potential recipients of PAC funds based on their support and understanding of our key public policy issues such as intellectual property protection, data security, privacy, and e-commerce and trade. Total PAC contributions in recent years have not exceeded $75,000 per election cycle; fiscal year 2008 contributions totaled $52,100. A complete list of candidates that have received Symantec PAC contributions can be found online.
Symantec partners with and supports the efforts of various organizations that engage in shaping public policy around online safety, privacy, intellectual property, and other challenging issues. Recently, David Thompson, group president for the Information Technology and Services Group at Symantec, joined the Board of the International Multilateral Partnership Against Cyber-Terrorism (IMPACT). Headquartered in Cyberjaya, Malaysia, the organization is the first global public-private initiative against cyber-terrorism. IMPACT will convene governments, industry leaders, and cybersecurity experts to collaborate on developing solutions to prevent, protect against, and respond to cyberthreats.
For more information on Symantec government relations please visit our Web site
