Ryan Sullivan cancelled what he thought was a "random charge for $4.99 per month from HP called 'Instant Ink'". Then his printer refused to print:
It turns out that HP requires its customers to enroll HP Instant Ink eligible printers into one of the Instant Ink plans, and continue paying a monthly subscription in order to be allowed to use the device.
But where's the need to come up with different plans coming from, you may wonder? HP explains: the company charges a fee based on the number of pages a customer prints each month, and the page count is shockingly monitored remotely.
Naturally, the scheme is not advertised as a rather unusual application of DRM, but a way for customers to save time and money. Still, it would seem HP has not exactly gone out of its way to explain all the consequences to those customers.
HP's terms of service also say that these eligible, internet-connected printers can be remotely modified in several ways, including by applying patches, updates, and "changes" – without notifying customers.
Another thing HP can see thanks to the Instant Ink program is the type of documents you print, identifying them by extension as Word, etc., documents, PDFs, or JPEG and other types of images.
Additionally, the HP cartridges have been locked to specific printers for quite a while now.
Earlier on SN:
US Customers Kick Up Class-Action Stink Over Epson's Kyboshing of Third-Party Ink (2019)
Xerox Is No More (2018)
Meg Whitman Resigns (2017)
Supreme Court Lets Consumers Refill Ink Cartridges (2017)
HP to Issue "Optional Firmware Update" Allowing 3rd-Party Ink (2016)
(Score: 5, Informative) by driverless on Tuesday January 21 2020, @03:40AM (3 children)
It's also partly the clown's fault. He signed up for it despite the exact thing that happened to him being well- and widely-documented. For example PC Mag [pcmag.com] says about Instant Ink:
Which sounds exactly like what he experienced (it then goes on the cover the different plans and what you get for different prices). He got exactly what he signed up for. It's a shit service that I'd never accept, but if you do accept it like he did then you can't later complain about getting exactly what you asked for.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 21 2020, @08:15AM (2 children)
Where exactly does it say that "your printer will be bricked if you at any time cancel the subscription"?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 21 2020, @09:04AM
You pay for X pages, can print X pages. You pay 0 pages, you can print 0 pages.
The idiot got exactly what he signed for.
(Score: 2) by zocalo on Tuesday January 21 2020, @09:28AM
UNIX? They're not even circumcised! Savages!