Technology.am (Jan 13, 2010) — In a move to demonstrate to its 350 million members that it’s serious about their protection, Facebook has launched a joint venture with security firm McAfee: six months of McAfee’s Internet Security Suite software, a discount subscription following that, and custom security software and education materials on Facebook.

“Facebook is applying all financial incentives from this partnership to the benefit of its users and will not be taking a share of any profits from user subscriptions,” a release explained. McAfee has also developed a free means for Facebook users to clean their hard drives in the occasion that their Facebook accounts are compromised through a malicious attack.

McAfee will in addition be providing content for Facebook’s security home page.

At present, Facebook users in the U.S., Canada, Mexico, Brazil, the U.K., Australia, Italy, Germany, Netherlands, Spain, and France are entitled for the free McAfee software promotion, and the release explained that more countries will be entitled over the subsequent few months. The downloadable software “protects users’ PCs from online threats, viruses, spyware, hackers, online scammers, identity thieves and other cybercriminals” and at present retails for about $35 per year through a discount on McAfee’s Web site.

The joint venture comes at a time when viruses and scams on Facebook have drummed up pages’ worth of bad press for the social network; even as it’s been comparatively watchful about disarming viruses as they multiply through “wall” posts and messages, they carry on to curse Facebook as they do the Web at large. The company’s in want of some image revamp in addition to lawful battle plans.

Facebook, the release explained, had been vigorously searching for an associate in this security proposal prior to choosing McAfee.