Verizon, Apple Lobby Against 'Right to Repair' Laws A handful of states are pursuing so-called "right to repair" laws, which would make it easier for consumers to repair their own products and find replacement parts and tools. The proposals were spearheaded in part by angry John Deere tractor owners, who say the company's draconian restrictions placed on what owners can do with their tractors has made the cost of doing business significantly more expensive.

quote: According to New York State's Joint Commission on Public Ethics, Apple, Verizon, Toyota, the printer company Lexmark, heavy machinery company Caterpillar, phone insurance company Asurion, and medical device company Medtronic have spent money lobbying against the Fair Repair Act this year. The Consumer Technology Association, which represents thousands of electronics manufacturers, is also lobbying against the bill. Historically none of these companies like to advertise that they're lobbying against your rights as a consumer to do what you like with hardware you own. They will, however, frequently insist that such laws will make users less safe, pose a cybersecurity risk, and open the door to cybersecurity theft. In Nebraska, Apple tried to shoot down a similar proposal their repair ecosystems. The rules are also backed by third party phone repair shops, who say that phone makers like Apple and game console makers like Sony and Microsoft have effectively monopolized repair, using their size and power to drive smaller companies out of business.According to Motherboard , both Apple and Verizon are lobbying against one-such right to repair bill in New York:Historically none of these companies like to advertise that they're lobbying against your rights as a consumer to do what you like with. They will, however, frequently insist that such laws will make users less safe, pose a cybersecurity risk, and open the door to cybersecurity theft. In Nebraska, Apple tried to shoot down a similar proposal by claiming that letting consumers repair their own devices would turn the state into a "mecca for bad actors" and "hackers." In reality, these companies simply want to protect the billions made from forcing consumers to userepair ecosystems.







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Most recommended from 66 comments

Nobbie16

join:2000-09-28

Jersey City, NJ 26 recommendations Nobbie16 Member Pure and unadulterated baloney! Tell them to go ask IBM what happened with that idea. ISurfTooMuch

join:2007-04-23

Tuscaloosa, AL 19 recommendations ISurfTooMuch Member They'll still do it As TestBoy said in another post, people will still try to fix things, no matter what. If companies try to keep new replacement parts out of people's hands, then what'll happen is that you'll have a market that will be filled by used parts coming from wherever people can scrounge them, usually from damaged hardware that's stripped of all the parts that can be salvaged. And, who knows, those salvaged parts may also be damaged, just not visibly so, but, if that's what people can get, that's what they'll use.



And don't give me this bullshit about allowing people to repair the hardware they own leading to a mecca for hackers, or whatever lame excuse these companies are spewing. People have been fixing things for as long as people have been making things, and the way you end up with dodgy repairs is when you force people to improvise and therefore pound that square peg into the round hole because a round one wasn't available.



Oh, and, as for hackers, I guess these companies forget that a hacker is someone who figures out how to make things work in ways that they weren't originally designed to work, either by exploiting flaws in software or by reverse-engineering hardware to make it do things it wasn't designed to do. So, you know what? I think I'd like a hacker fixing my phone. Maybe then, I could actually use all the features included in it, not just the ones the manufacturer and carrier decide to allow me to use.

SteveV

join:2016-08-21

Williamsburg, VA 11 recommendations SteveV Member ...or we could just ban lobbying Isn't it great when companies that have more money than God come up with some bullshit excuse that would allow them to extort even more money out of us so they can become richer? Then they pay lobbyists, who bribe, err make legal campaign contributions to our lawmakers who pass these things into law for our safety and best interest.



I will never understand how this blatant conflict of interest is legal. cahiatt

Premium Member

join:2001-03-21

Smyrna, GA 4 recommendations cahiatt Premium Member Medtronic? I all for letting anyone fix whatever they want and hope to hell Apple and the others get b#@ch slapped over this. But why is Medtronic jumping into this? Unless they have some cheaper, over the counter retail products I thought they mostly make implanted or prescribed medical devices like pacemakers, defibrillators and such. I'm not sure I would be ready to have my pacemaker tuned up at the corner gas station / electronics repair station.

cb14

join:2013-02-04

Miami Beach, FL ·Localphone

·Zadarma

·Verizon Wireless

·callwithus

·T-Mobile

·AT&T U-Verse

·Callcentric

3 recommendations cb14 Member They do not want you to fix it. This problem started decades ago but it s becoming extreme lately. How can it be even legal to make phones where the consumer cannot flip the battery?? And it applies to other products as well. Everything is difficult or impossible to fix and where you can fix it the spare parts are obscenely expensive. And it is a global problem. I spoke to someone from an EU country whose headlight on his car had to be changed. Forget taking a screw driver and flipping the bulb. It had to go to the shop, 650 euro costs.

This causes not only a huge economical damage, but it's also a growing environmental problem, with mountains of (electronic) waste. A strong ( international) regulation is needed. rradina

join:2000-08-08

Chesterfield, MO 920.3 39.3

·Charter

2 edits 2 recommendations rradina Member Mecca for "bad actors" and "hackers" I thought this was more than just "consumers" repairing their phones. I thought this was also about allowing third party repair shops the ability to get parts and repair phones on behalf of consumers. There are already third party repair shops that even repair iPhone screens. Has any of the existing activity by third party repair shops created this "mecca"? How would adding consumers, who would exercise this right in a one-time fashion in the act of repairing their own phone, exacerbate whatever problems currently exist?



Is this about the potential for third parties to manufacture parts that might compromise security? Beyond replacing the camera, screen, battery and possibly other parts that are not integrated with the main board, I've read there are concerns about hacked fingerprint readers. If OEMs make those parts available at a fair price, what's the issue? Is there a key injection process that allows the main board to trust the sensor? That's certainly a concern with credit card readers but if manufactures complete that process before they resell it, are they at any greater risk of losing control of a key than new phones where hackers could decap the chip? Is the answer a custom key per component that's signed by a master key that the phone's main board trusts?