Citing US restrictions, Google removed Kaspersky Lab’s antivirus software from the Play Store and terminated its developer account in the days leading up to the September 29th deadline of the restrictions, according to a Kaspersky blog post yesterday.
Kaspersky no longer on Google Play Store anywhere following US ban
Kaspersky calls Google’s removal an ‘overinterpretation’ of US restrictions.
Kaspersky calls Google’s removal an ‘overinterpretation’ of US restrictions.
Illustration by Kristen Radtke / The Verge
The decision was “based on overinterpretation of the U.S. restrictions,” Kaspersky writes, insisting that the restrictions “don’t prohibit the sales and distribution of Kaspersky’s products and services outside the United States.” Apps previously installed from Google Play “will continue to work normally,” the company added, but it won’t get updates and can’t be reinstalled.
On September 27th, Kaspersky forum users started reporting that they could no longer find the app on Google Play. A Kaspersky employee replied two days later, saying that “downloads and updates of Kaspersky products are temporarily unavailable on the Google Play store.”
Google confirmed the removal in a statement to BleepingComputer last week, writing that it did so in response to “a variety of restrictions on Kaspersky” by the US Department of Commerce’s Bureau of Industry and Security.
Google did not immediately respond to The Verge’s request for comment.
The US sanctioned Kaspersky back in June. In response, Kaspersky uprooted its US operations the next month and, without user permission, later replaced itself on computers in the US with alternative antivirus software from UltraAV.
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