Twitter Inc. said on Friday it had banned ads from Kaspersky Lab, saying the company’s business model violated advertising regulations and citing U.S. allegations that Kaspersky is linked to Russian intelligence services.
Twitter confirmed the ban in an email to Reuters after Kaspersky Lab founder Eugene Kaspersky revealed the details in a blog post.
The ban from Twitter follows Washington’s allegations that Kaspersky Lab has close ties to Russian intelligence services and that its software could be used for espionage, prompting the Trump administration to ban the company’s products from U.S. government networks.
Kaspersky Lab has repeatedly denied the allegations, saying it would open up the app’s code for experts to inspect and has asked a U.S. federal court to lift the ban.
Eugene Kaspersky wrote in his blog:
We have not violated any written or unwritten terms and our business model is the same business model used throughout the cyberspace industry: We provide our users with products and services and they pay us.
However, Facebook Inc. also said that it had removed Kaspersky Lab last October from the lists of antiviruses it has preventively for users of the social network.
