Easy to set up and use, it includes built-in anti-virus and spam-fighting technology and 99.9 percent uptime guarantee.

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Yet ironically, as Microsoft slowly improves the security of its products by, for instance, incorporating firewall technology, anti-virus systems and spam filters its actions increasingly start to resemble those that, in the past, have got the firm into trouble with regulators.

ECONOMIST: Microsoft

In August this year Qihoo 360 Technology, an anti-virus software company, launched a competing search engine.

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Graham Cluley, senior technology consultant at anti-virus company Sophos, said the virus had been known about since the end of June and anyone with up to date anti-virus software was unlikely to be infected by it.

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