6 ms·

I generally like the EFF, and I'm a member (albeit at a low paying level)... but if you're really unhappy about this, isn't it better just to stop buying HP pri

I generally like the EFF, and I'm a member (albeit at a low paying level)... but if you're really unhappy about this, isn't it better just to stop buying HP printer products? Rather than being so activist & "omg outrage!", why doesn't the EFF publish a list of printers that the EFF currently does recommend? Almost like the Wirecutter does with their product testing reviews. (It sounds like Epson might be one alternative with the EcoTank range.) They could evaluate products against EFF values (driver compatibility with Linux / BSD maybe?) and it would be a more positive & productive response than social media outrage.

supergreg 10y ago
A chart like they did for messaging apps would be nice. Show the pros and cons, let the consumer decide and even bring light to little known, well behaved players if there are any :^)
kasbah 10y ago
Doesn't seem like they are mutually exclusive. Why not do both?
daenney 10y ago
Sure it's nice to boycott them but doing it this way has the (slim?) potential of getting that change reverted, restoring full functionality/compatibility to current customers. That said, I really do want to see someone compile that list you suggested.
awinder 10y ago
Because they've already defrauded existing customers?
praptak 10y ago
Because consumer choice is a very weak weapon against your freedoms being taken away. Political action is what corporations fear, in particular the threat of organized support behind ideas to regulate them more heavily. Edit: RMS quote: "All in all, I think it is a mistake to defend people’s rights with one hand tied behind our backs, using nothing except the individual option to say no to a deal. We should use democracy to organize and together impose limits on what the rich can do to the rest of us. That’s what democracy was invented for!"
- adrusi 10y ago
  Why would they fear regulation? Their competitors become subject to the same restrictions.
  - Declanomous 10y ago
    Their competitors may be subject to the same regulations, but new regulations force companies to develop products that comply with the new regulations. R&D is a huge expense, and you can't guarantee the product you develop is going to be better than your competitors. Furthermore, their competitors might already have a product which meets the new regulations, or one which can be easily modified to meet them. This can lead to a financial advantage, but it can also mean the competitor has a period where they are the only product on the market.
    - fmihaila 10y ago
      Regulation demanding not to screw your customers doesn't seem like such a big burden to me.
      - 6DM 10y ago
        I fear it would never meet the paper as "don't screw your customers." It would be something more along the lines of, "Cartridges should be at least the size of (exact dimensions of existing HP cartridges) and work a reasonable amount of time." To which HP could easily counter, "reasonable" is dependent on freshness and quality of the lines or some bs like that. Edit: to clarify, I agree with you that regulation to the consumers benefit would be good, but am assuming that the law written would just be to HP's benefit anyway
        fmihaila 10y ago
        > to clarify, I agree with you that regulation to the consumers benefit would be good, but am assuming that the law written would just be to HP's benefit anyway A more hopeful, less cynical view would be that consumer protection laws do exist, and it's reasonable to assume that in the absence of any such laws, sellers would certainly try to get away with much more than they currently are. So regulation does work, at least to some extent. To be sure, I don't know that new regulation is needed in this particular case. HP may have broken an existing law already, but I'm not a lawyer. The bigger point is that lawmakers deal with ambiguity all the time, and if they can be convinced to make a law for a purpose, they surely have the means to do it. The convincing is the hard part, which is why taking issues like this one into the political arena is sometimes necessary.
Kadin 10y ago
Boycotts are a pretty weak weapon compared to the ability to tarnish a company's reputation. I've yet to see a boycott really have any effect in the tech marketplace, but negative publicity often elicits some sort of response when it starts to get mainstream media coverage.
- SyneRyder 10y ago
  I didn't mean a boycott as such - I have an HP printer, and I knew when I bought it that it requires proprietary/DRM ink. I'm surprised any customers who care about ink DRM would have bought an HP printer. Their website is full of pages about the "anti-counterfeit" ink security in their printer products. I do hope the customers this affects can get refunds, but it seems to me that if you want a printer where you can refill the ink yourself or use third-party cartridges, it would be better to just buy a printer from a company that already supports that.
ultramancool 10y ago
I'd love this kind of report with various things. I'm thinking phones would be extremely helpful too, how easy is it to unlock the bootloader on this phone? How hard is it to repair it? What proprietary blobs does it rely upon?
frandroid 10y ago
The specific problem here was that this was a booby-trap feature that users couldn't prevent from happening because it got "added" to the product months after the purchasing decision. HP was able to go forward in time to modify the product, post-purchase, but you can't go back in time to get a refund.
- SyneRyder 10y ago
  Why can't you get a refund? Has HP denied refunds to customers who wanted to return their printer over this matter?
  - frandroid 10y ago
    Will HP really refund a 2 year old printer that got this security update?
    - SyneRyder 10y ago
      I don't know about in the US, but under Australian consumer law companies are required to provide a 2 year warranty against defects. I think the number of customers who are genuinely affected by this is so low that HP might be happy to just pay off the handful of customers who complain to them. If you're using 3rd party inks, you're probably not a customer that HP want anyway. If no one actually tries to get a refund, we won't know.
      - frandroid 10y ago
        Considering that HP tells in its instructions that you must use HP cartridges, there's no way they'd accept the premise that not using HP-branded cartridges is a defect. That's the point of the exercise.
        SyneRyder 10y ago
        If there's no defect, there's no reason for the EFF to call them out! As it is, I'll probably cancel my EFF membership over this (my renewal is due in a fortnight). I'd rather they support manufacturers who share their values and provide buyers guides to help customers decide.
deleted 10y ago
[deleted]
Broken_Hippo 10y ago
That is an option for folks for their future purposes. And some of them will indeed go with another company. This seemed a bit more underhanded. Ok, maybe the package had things telling folks to always use HP ink and not a different sort. I personally would just pass most of that off as a marketing ploy. I mean, shampoo recommends I use their complementary conditioner after all. Folks were indeed using non-hp ink with success - it isn't like the printer just refused to print with the replacements. If HP clearly stated that the machine wouldn't work with non-HP parts, it was obviously untrue. Then a security update introduced the 'feature' that bricked the printers using non-HP ink. So one day, you find you simply can't print. Which is an annoyance if you are printing whimsical stuff, but not so great if you are printing off papers you need to take to work tomorrow or that you need for an immigration appointment or something like that. Suddenly, the printer doesn't work. I think if it were an upfront, out-of-the-box thing (honesty and stuff) it wouldn't be such a big deal. It would be much like the DRM coffee pods. New machine, now with DRM! They didn't give the old machines an update, however, and take away the ability to use replacements.
arde 10y ago
HP has just bought the Samsung printer business. That's one less choice if you want to simply stop buying HP printers. If HP is allowed to keep doing its dirty tricks (sneaky firmware updates and all) then things are only going to get worse.

supergreg 10y ago

A chart like they did for messaging apps would be nice. Show the pros and cons, let the consumer decide and even bring light to little known, well behaved players if there are any :^)

kasbah 10y ago

Doesn't seem like they are mutually exclusive. Why not do both?

daenney 10y ago

Sure it's nice to boycott them but doing it this way has the (slim?) potential of getting that change reverted, restoring full functionality/compatibility to current customers. That said, I really do want to see someone compile that list you suggested.

awinder 10y ago

Because they've already defrauded existing customers?

praptak 10y ago

Because consumer choice is a very weak weapon against your freedoms being taken away. Political action is what corporations fear, in particular the threat of organized support behind ideas to regulate them more heavily. Edit: RMS quote: "All in all, I think it is a mistake to defend people’s rights with one hand tied behind our backs, using nothing except the individual option to say no to a deal. We should use democracy to organize and together impose limits on what the rich can do to the rest of us. That’s what democracy was invented for!"

adrusi 10y ago
Why would they fear regulation? Their competitors become subject to the same restrictions.
- Declanomous 10y ago
  Their competitors may be subject to the same regulations, but new regulations force companies to develop products that comply with the new regulations. R&D is a huge expense, and you can't guarantee the product you develop is going to be better than your competitors. Furthermore, their competitors might already have a product which meets the new regulations, or one which can be easily modified to meet them. This can lead to a financial advantage, but it can also mean the competitor has a period where they are the only product on the market.
  - fmihaila 10y ago
    Regulation demanding not to screw your customers doesn't seem like such a big burden to me.
    - 6DM 10y ago
      I fear it would never meet the paper as "don't screw your customers." It would be something more along the lines of, "Cartridges should be at least the size of (exact dimensions of existing HP cartridges) and work a reasonable amount of time." To which HP could easily counter, "reasonable" is dependent on freshness and quality of the lines or some bs like that. Edit: to clarify, I agree with you that regulation to the consumers benefit would be good, but am assuming that the law written would just be to HP's benefit anyway
      - fmihaila 10y ago
        > to clarify, I agree with you that regulation to the consumers benefit would be good, but am assuming that the law written would just be to HP's benefit anyway A more hopeful, less cynical view would be that consumer protection laws do exist, and it's reasonable to assume that in the absence of any such laws, sellers would certainly try to get away with much more than they currently are. So regulation does work, at least to some extent. To be sure, I don't know that new regulation is needed in this particular case. HP may have broken an existing law already, but I'm not a lawyer. The bigger point is that lawmakers deal with ambiguity all the time, and if they can be convinced to make a law for a purpose, they surely have the means to do it. The convincing is the hard part, which is why taking issues like this one into the political arena is sometimes necessary.

Kadin 10y ago

Boycotts are a pretty weak weapon compared to the ability to tarnish a company's reputation. I've yet to see a boycott really have any effect in the tech marketplace, but negative publicity often elicits some sort of response when it starts to get mainstream media coverage.

SyneRyder 10y ago
I didn't mean a boycott as such - I have an HP printer, and I knew when I bought it that it requires proprietary/DRM ink. I'm surprised any customers who care about ink DRM would have bought an HP printer. Their website is full of pages about the "anti-counterfeit" ink security in their printer products. I do hope the customers this affects can get refunds, but it seems to me that if you want a printer where you can refill the ink yourself or use third-party cartridges, it would be better to just buy a printer from a company that already supports that.

ultramancool 10y ago

I'd love this kind of report with various things. I'm thinking phones would be extremely helpful too, how easy is it to unlock the bootloader on this phone? How hard is it to repair it? What proprietary blobs does it rely upon?

frandroid 10y ago

The specific problem here was that this was a booby-trap feature that users couldn't prevent from happening because it got "added" to the product months after the purchasing decision. HP was able to go forward in time to modify the product, post-purchase, but you can't go back in time to get a refund.

SyneRyder 10y ago
Why can't you get a refund? Has HP denied refunds to customers who wanted to return their printer over this matter?
- frandroid 10y ago
  Will HP really refund a 2 year old printer that got this security update?
  - SyneRyder 10y ago
    I don't know about in the US, but under Australian consumer law companies are required to provide a 2 year warranty against defects. I think the number of customers who are genuinely affected by this is so low that HP might be happy to just pay off the handful of customers who complain to them. If you're using 3rd party inks, you're probably not a customer that HP want anyway. If no one actually tries to get a refund, we won't know.
    - frandroid 10y ago
      Considering that HP tells in its instructions that you must use HP cartridges, there's no way they'd accept the premise that not using HP-branded cartridges is a defect. That's the point of the exercise.
      - SyneRyder 10y ago
        If there's no defect, there's no reason for the EFF to call them out! As it is, I'll probably cancel my EFF membership over this (my renewal is due in a fortnight). I'd rather they support manufacturers who share their values and provide buyers guides to help customers decide.

deleted 10y ago

[deleted]

Broken_Hippo 10y ago

That is an option for folks for their future purposes. And some of them will indeed go with another company. This seemed a bit more underhanded. Ok, maybe the package had things telling folks to always use HP ink and not a different sort. I personally would just pass most of that off as a marketing ploy. I mean, shampoo recommends I use their complementary conditioner after all. Folks were indeed using non-hp ink with success - it isn't like the printer just refused to print with the replacements. If HP clearly stated that the machine wouldn't work with non-HP parts, it was obviously untrue. Then a security update introduced the 'feature' that bricked the printers using non-HP ink. So one day, you find you simply can't print. Which is an annoyance if you are printing whimsical stuff, but not so great if you are printing off papers you need to take to work tomorrow or that you need for an immigration appointment or something like that. Suddenly, the printer doesn't work. I think if it were an upfront, out-of-the-box thing (honesty and stuff) it wouldn't be such a big deal. It would be much like the DRM coffee pods. New machine, now with DRM! They didn't give the old machines an update, however, and take away the ability to use replacements.

arde 10y ago

HP has just bought the Samsung printer business. That's one less choice if you want to simply stop buying HP printers. If HP is allowed to keep doing its dirty tricks (sneaky firmware updates and all) then things are only going to get worse.