Symantec abstains from AV Comparatives this year

So this is 3 months old at this point, but I only just noticed and I think it’s puzzling and significant to note. It seems that Symantec has decided not to allow its line of Norton security products to participate in my favorite impartial antivirus shoot-out at www.av-comparatives.org. I have no idea why they wouldn’t want to appear beside the other big players in home internet security; historically they have compared very favorably in these tests.  This is troubling because it really degrades the usefulness of the reports AV-Comparatives publishes when you can’t see how one of the biggest names in the business stacks up against its competitors.