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from the an-industry-group-of-notorious-for-lobbying-to-protect-is-repair-monopolies dept.
Submitted via IRC for SoyCow1984
When you buy a game console, smartphone, dryer, vacuum cleaner, or any number of other complicated electronics, there’s usually a sticker or a piece of paperwork telling you that trying to repair the device yourself will void your warranty. That’s illegal under the federal Magnuson-Moss Warranty Act. Companies offering a warranty on their goods aren’t allowed to void that warranty if the user attempts to repair it themself, but that doesn’t stop the company from scaring customers into thinking it’s true.
It’s such a huge problem that US PIRG—a non-profit that uses grassroots methods to advocate for political change—found that 90 percent of manufacturers it contacted claimed that a third party repair would void its warranty [pdf]. PIRG researched the warranty information of 50 companies in the Association of Home Appliance Manufacturers (AHAM)—an industry group of notorious for lobbying to protect is repair monopolies [sic]—and found that 45 of them claimed independent repair would void their warranty.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday October 13 2018, @10:17PM (2 children)
It's wrong to use illegal wording in your warranties to prohibit user repairs. If your going to do it, do it right like Apple and make the firmware brick the device if third party repairs are attempted.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by fyngyrz on Saturday October 13 2018, @10:50PM (1 child)
Most corporations are really just like people.
And the people they are like... are psychopaths and sociopaths.
As a Mac/OSX user, my usual go-to for truly awful corporate behavior is, naturally enough, Apple. That's because I'm sadly familiar with their various undertakings of anti-user malfuckery. But I've seen plenty of it from many other sources as well. Enough to know for sure that such behavior is the rule, and not the exception.
But corporations have the money, and therefore the power... and so it goes. Unless we can clean up our lawmaking and justice processes, this isn't going to change. And there's little enough indication of such a clean up, for certain.
One thing about it, though. If and when you find an operation that actually supports you, the end user, with either hardware or software, good grief, support the hell out of them at the expense of the bad actors.
(Score: 2) by MichaelDavidCrawford on Sunday October 14 2018, @02:18AM
they all masturbate but they don't admit to it.
Yes I Have No Bananas. [gofundme.com]