Norton Crypto promises to turn your computer’s idle time into cash. Norton is facing criticism for including a crypto miner alongside its Norton 360 security software. Activists like Cory Doctorow have claimed that the company “sneakily installs cryptomining software on your computer” and skims a commission on profits, and outlets like PC Mag , Krebs on Security , and Digital Trends have also written about users expressing frustration trying to uninstall it.
Source: Here’s the truth about the crypto miner that comes with Norton Antivirus
The Product Prospectus Take:
I am a fan of block chain technology and all the innovative and novel approach in using that tech like crypto.
But lets be realistic its not a simple tech to understand and trust is a factor when you are talking about adding that to dealing with people and money. So feature like this can help drive understanding of the tech and help drive adoption, but it has to be weighed against user experience / expectations.
The installer should prompt the user / market the option for users to install the miner. Its always a bad idea to surprise customer and cause panic by adding elements. To drive adoption Norton could have taken the path of incentivizing customers by letting them make money as part of a Norton hosted mining pool. That way they can partake in some percentage of the end users mining profits.
Good idea, but could have use a better strategy to drive adoption.