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The CEO and the board must serve prison time for things like this. No measure less than prison for the CEO and all board members is enough to curtail this becau

• HeavyStorm 3y ago
  I completely agree.
• VWWHFSfQ 3y ago
  Prison time? For bricking an $80 printer unless you use specific parts? I don't think so. Let's try to stay on planet earth here..
  • rvense 3y ago
    I'm quite sure you can go to prison for stealing a printer. Why not for breaking one?
    • bluGill 3y ago
      That is vandalism.
    • eric-hu 3y ago
      The cynical answer might be that HP secretly updated their TOS so that the printer transaction is not a purchase but a long term rental on their terms. Not unlike “buying” a game on Steam or “buying” a Tesla. In both cases, you do something the vendor dislikes and your ownership is toast.
  • clipsy 3y ago
    You deliberately misrepresent this as one $80 printer; in reality it is the sum total of all printers bricked by this, plus price gouging the printer owners who don’t want their printer bricked. If even a few dozen printers were bricked by this it would represent more lost value than the threshold for grand larceny in many jurisdictions; do you propose we let people who steal, say, $1600 of goods walk away scot free? And don’t waste your breath on fines —- those will only be passed on to the captive consumers as the “cost of business.”
    • VWWHFSfQ 3y ago
      Prison seems very extreme to me. But maybe it's appropriate, I don't know.
      • serf 3y ago
        whats the threshold? how much damage has to occur until a CEO can be held to the same standards as a citizen? "corporations are people except for all that crime and punishment stuff."
      • rolenthedeep 3y ago
        What would happen if you went around to every house in your neighborhood and smashed everyone's printers? Would you be fined 0.01% of the cost of damaged items, or would you go to jail?
    • CoastalCoder 3y ago
      I'm curious if this violates U.S. code 1030(a)(5) [0] "(5) (A)knowingly causes the transmission of a program, information, code, or command, and as a result of such conduct, intentionally causes damage without authorization, to a protected computer; (B)intentionally accesses a protected computer without authorization, and as a result of such conduct, recklessly causes damage; or (C)intentionally accesses a protected computer without authorization, and as a result of such conduct, causes damage and loss.[2]" [0] https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/1030 https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/1030
      • mcny 3y ago
        We should absolutely use every tool available to us. I anal and I don’t quite understand if this is CFAA but it is my personal conviction that that the CFAA is both overly broad and unnecessary and must be repealed. Meanwhile, it is a miscarriage of justice that prosecutors don’t seem to use CFAA against large corporations.
      • NoMoreNicksLeft 3y ago
        Are we even sure that the customers legally own the printers? For instance, has anyone bothered to read the EULA that came with whatever bundled software someone installs now days to get the printer driver working? Even if there isn't surreptitious transfer of the hardware, they could certainly have a clause in there that authorizes them to do such things.
  • jxf 3y ago
    Not saying they should go to jail, but OP is saying they're bricking potentially millions of printers, not one $80 printer.
  • alanbernstein 3y ago
    Ink isn't a "part".
  • throwbadubadu 3y ago
    It's not a 80$ printer but damage to society, or if you find that exaggerated hurting and lying to customers. Prison is hard, on the other hand let the scale of damage and intention decide.. more human would be just stick to penalties. They just must be high enough to hurt really, not ridiculous amounts you can price in. Like do it once and maybe get away with it, but do it twice or thrice and you will quite certainly bankrupt the company.
  • liendolucas 3y ago
    I can't believe such a response. Is not the $80 dollar printer, is that HP is crossing a line, boarding the realm of illegality, misappropriating an electronic device that should be yours. And is also not money that you lose. Is frustration, time and feeling miserably deceit by a corporation that gives a shit about you. Also that you probably end up buying another printer and/or wasting time doing some research on printers online to not fall again into a dirty and dodgy maneuver like this.
  • deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
  • mcv 3y ago
    Poor people sometimes go to prison for far smaller crimes than this. The problem is that far too often, rich and powerful people are only held accountable if they hurt other rich and powerful people. And if it's a million $80 printers affected by this, it's an $80 million crime.
• gameman144 3y ago
  I don't think prison time is even what's needed here, I think these issues would resolve themselves if corporate fines were continually issued, rather than one-off lawsuits. For instance, a standing ruling that if your printer stops being able to print for no reason other than a contract breach, then the hardware is eligible for a refund. We don't need to put CEOs in prison for making consumer-hostile decisions, we just need to also make those decisions bad business.
  • HeavyStorm 3y ago
    No; we need jail.
  • kerkeslager 3y ago
    Corporate fines just end up being passed on to workers who had nothing to do with the decision. "We had to (lay off 10% of our workforce|cut worker pay by 10%|etc.) because of these unfair fines." Corporations aren't people--they can't make the decision to do unethical things. Yes, I understand the law, I'm saying the law is incorrect. People do unethical things, and people should be held responsible for their actions. Fining decision-makers might be an acceptable alternative to jail time, as long as the minimum fine is some sort of multiple of profits gained, to prevent criminals from just figuring a slap on the wrist fine into their decision-making math.
    • pydry 3y ago
      >Corporate fines just end up being passed on to workers who had nothing to do with the decision. "We had to (lay off 10% of our workforce|cut worker pay by 10%|etc.) because of these unfair fines." This is like "if you raise the minimum wage we'll only have to lay people off" which is equally self serving and utterly, completely wrong. Employees dont pay. Shareholders pay. If they could have fired 1 employee and collected a bit of extra profit they would already have done so.
      • kerkeslager 3y ago
        > If they could have fired 1 employee and collected a bit of extra profit they would already have done so. But they couldn't pay workers less or decrease workforce, because they needed those workers to execute the unethical business plan. They weren't waiting for a fine to cut workers, they were waiting for the cash cow to stop producing milk to cut workers who were necessary to keep the cash cow going.
• elbigbad 3y ago
  I like the sentiment a lot but curious what law this is against that has prison time as a consequence? I can’t think of any, but if there are none, we should pass laws that allow this to put these people on notice and then aggressively prosecute.
  • option 3y ago
    intentionally destroying someone’s property?
    • emodendroket 3y ago
      Let's see a statute this would fall under.
      • lazide 3y ago
        Not the poster or taking a position, but California Penal Code 594 (Vandalism/Malicious Mischief) might apply if one were to try to take that direction. [https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/codes_displaySection.xhtml?sectionNum=594&lawCode=PEN https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/codes_displaySectio...] Difficulty: it’s a wobbler, and is only a misdemeanor unless it’s > $400 worth of damage. Good luck proving that in this situation. Maybe if they wrote in an email their evil plan to set the printers on fire so their customers would buy new ones, and it caught some people’s houses on fire. Civil claims or a class action are an entirely different matter of course.
• deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
• rhaway84773 3y ago
  HN is so bipolar. This seems to be the top vote comment here, demanding jail time for CEOs for printers not working. Meanwhile, the top comment on an article painstakingly detailing how a company is using every dirty trick in the book to get mentally incapable or distressed, etc people to sell homes to them at far below market value has a top comment basically saying “well, they signed a contract”. Or maybe it’s as simple as this affects most HNers, so it’s the worst thing in the world, whereas that doesn’t, so people it does affect are just suckers.
  • jeltz 3y ago
    HN is more than just one guy and different articles attract different audiences.
    • bxparks 3y ago
      Can't believe someone downvoted your perfectly reasonable comment.
  • throwawayadvsec 3y ago
    Isn't it a good thing that HN isn't a hivemind?
• detrites 3y ago
  While I generally agree, there's something more immediate. All of us having this view can refuse to ever buy or even use HP products, and explain to anyone and everyone at every opportunity exactly why this is. Boycotts can be immensely powerful, and strike fear into the hearts of those who would exploit us. Personally, I will never buy an HP product again. Absolute, permanent blacklist. It's simply way too disgusting to me that they would even consider doing this, let alone actually carry it out. What must they think of their customers? It's unforgivable.
  • bt4u 3y ago
    [dead]
  • ClumsyPilot 3y ago
    > Boycotts can be immensely powerful, and strike fear into the hearts of those who would exploit us. I cannot find a single example of a successful boycott in my lifetime. Can you?
    • detrites 3y ago
      There've been some few recently in the public backlash to the "woke" movement. It's been so effective particularly regarding financials a rallying meme emerged: "Go woke, go broke!" Little of this reaches mainstream outlets, as embarrassing oneself's somewhat untenable for institutions in speedy declines, partly, from relatedly-shortsighted population-alienators.
    • anonymouskimmer 3y ago
      Most do nothing major, but I found a list as the top result from a search for "successful boycotts". https://www.latimes.com/nation/la-na-boycotts-history-20180228-htmlstory.html https://www.latimes.com/nation/la-na-boycotts-history-201802... In my lifetime: The South African Apartheid boycotts drove US congressional action and ultimately resulted in an end to apartheid.
  • ryao 3y ago
    How about switching to laser printers from brands that do not play these shenanigans? As far as I know, the only one that does not do it is Canon, which has the same security chips, but lets you opt into disabling third party cartridge support. Also, of interest, is that HP and Canon printers can use the same toner cartridges: https://www.shop.xerox.com/supplies-accessories?brand=6346 https://www.shop.xerox.com/supplies-accessories?brand=6346 For the most part, HP does not make its own printers anymore and just sells rebadged printers running their own firmware. It would not surprise me if the ink for HP Smart Tank printers is identical to the ink for Canon Mega Tank printers. They reportedly are selling some models using technology that they obtained from Samsung, but aside from that, very little of what they sell they actually make. They are basically a middle man.
• crazygringo 3y ago
  Why not send top stockholders to prison while you're at it? And regional managers as well? And the stores that sell the printers too? No, prison makes zero sense. When people agree to a business contract and one side fails to uphold their end of the bargain, the remedy should remain financial. And punitive remedies exist precisely to make sure the "cost of doing business" makes it no longer profitable. And if that's not happening, then that's the fault of the legislators and voters. This is why we need to vote people into office who ensure that consumer protection laws remain strong.
  • anigbrowl 3y ago
    It's not as if corporate actors are passive non-participants in the political process, abstaining from lobbying or campaign financing. It's much more economical for corporation to influence legislation/regulation than for voters to build a coalition and then try to leverage it to significantly alter the status quo. Ignoring this reality makes idealistic arguments like yours seem naive at best.
    • crazygringo 3y ago
      No, there's nothing naive about it at all. I'm not making a specific political endorsement here, but if voters elect candidates like e.g. Elizabeth Warren to Congress then you get much stronger consumer protections, corporate lobbying be damned. I'm not saying corporate lobbying has zero influence (that would be naive), but if the electorate chooses to care about something, it trumps corporations. This is actually a major finding of academic research on corporate influence and lobbying in politics -- it's mostly effective specifically in areas where voters aren't paying attention and don't care.
      • AndrewKemendo 3y ago
        The idea that there’s cornucopias of choice in day to day life for 99% of Americans is absurd You have to go to extraordinary and extreme measures to break out of the basic choices that you are offered for which the profits all go to the same group of people There is basically Zero diversity in the corporate landscape for either consumers or workers. Maybe even if that’s the trend, let’s choose not all live in a pvp hellscape owned by about 10,000 people that enjoy infinite luxury, another 8 million who insulate them by showing that “You too can be a class striver and abandon the working class” and the rest of the 8Billion people slowly killing each other for the scraps left behind as everyone tries to claw their way into the 1% and beyond.
• oxfordmale 3y ago
  Just stop buying HP printers. If you bought and it is still under warranty, ask for a full refund. You likely won't get it, but make sure HP waste as much time as possible dealing with this In the UK it is even worth considering to take this to the small claims court. Of course seek legal advice first. The only way HP gets away with this, because people just accept this kind of behaviour.
  • pessimizer 3y ago
    > The only way HP gets away with this, because people just accept this kind of behaviour. No, the way they get away with it is to collude, and make sure customers have no other choices.
    • oxfordmale 3y ago
      There are other printer brands that do not follow HP's lowball tactics.
  • ClumsyPilot 3y ago
    > The only way HP gets away with this, because people just accept this kind of behaviour please name a situation in the past 50 years where a conpany went under or lost at least 10% of their revenue from'peiple not accepting' this behaviour
    • torstenvl 3y ago
      Netflix is down by a lot. Some of that may be due to temporary outlook during the COVID pandemic. However, it's still down by more than 10% from a pre-lockdown stock price of ~380.00 in February 2020.
      • brewdad 3y ago
        What behavior are people punishing Netflix for exactly?
        • 3y ago
• armchairhacker 3y ago
  How the heck would you create such a law with no unintended consequences? “If you want to not be held accountable for the work your employees, contractors, and agents do on your behalf, you should have to prove they acted against your express written orders.” So if a low-wage worker goes mad and kills his coworker the CEO should be charged with murder? What if his salary got cut and it was a customer? Where do you draw the line? What’s needed is regulation and fines, so that it’s not the “cost of doing business” and they lose money (the one thing that dictates their decisions) from this stunt. If there was actually a decent competitor, they could simply be forced to fully refund impacted customers who decide to switch, but HP has basically a monopoly on printers. This is a sign they need to be broken up or put under strict regulation like utilities. That would a) fully repay affected customers, b) stop the practice for future customers, and c) discourage other companies from this practice. IMO 3 goals, and the only 3 reasons, we have a justice system and punishments in the first place. This isn’t an action which caused permanent, life-altering harm. This is an action which can be 110% undone (via extra fines), so no further punishment is necessary. And yes, I know petty thieves and druggies serve jail time for causing much lesser problems. That’s wrong too. “2 wrongs don’t make a right”
  • emodendroket 3y ago
    Step one would probably be making this practice illegal in the first place, which, as far as I can tell, it isn't. Putting the cart before the horse to worry about who's liable for doing something legal.
    • torstenvl 3y ago
      Not my practice area, and I don't know all the facts. But if they sold printers and later disable those printers, it doesn't strike me as unreasonable to treat that as a fraud or swindle in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 1341, or as an unfair or deceptive trade practice under 15 U.S.C. § 45. If this were anything other than tech - if, say, IKEA sold you a bed frame that disintegrated the moment you used a non-IKEA mattress or comforter - I don't think the government would be so blasé about it. (EDIT: Perhaps less of a case if the printer merely won't work with those cartridges rather than actually being disabled.)
• RobotToaster 3y ago
  Just being able to hold CEOs and directors vicariously liable for employee actions like this would be a good start.
• emodendroket 3y ago
  What criminal law have they violated?
• ROTMetro 3y ago
  As someone here came up with, as punishment instead of fines the government should be granted X percentage non-dilutable ownership of the company. Mess up once, you now have to deal with the government owning 5% or more. This punishes the shareholders/owners in a real way that fines don't. If the business continues to mess up the government would acquires more ownership until it becomes majority owner and can completely clean house. The Government can sell their ownership after X years or if once in majority control replaces X people in management. Funds from sales could not be used for general budget purposes (to prevent the government from instituting taking as policy) but instead social goods projects (provide waterworks improvement grants, provide scholarships, etc).
  • mhb 3y ago
    The government takes money for public education from me and doesn't let me swap cartridges (i.e., spend that money on a less crappy school that it doesn't run). So not looking forward to your plan.
• rqtwteye 3y ago
  Make them pay the fines personally. They take credit and make big money when employees do the right thing, so let's make it a two way street. Once their net worth gets wiped, maybe they will get the message.
  • RedNifre 3y ago
    This does not work, they have insurance against this.
    • jiggawatts 3y ago
      Wait... what!? How can that possibly be legal?
      • Zak 3y ago
        It's legal to buy insurance covering civil liability for almost anything other than criminal acts. The price and availability of such insurance tends to vary in proportion to the risk, and policies often have specific exclusions to discourage risky behaviors. Directors and officers insurance is very common. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Directors_and_officers_liability_insurance https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Directors_and_officers_liabili...
        • jiggawatts 3y ago
          Claim: “We deserve this compensation because we take the big risks.” Reality: “Our insurance takes care of practically all personal risk.”
    • rqtwteye 3y ago
      It may be hard to get insurance once they have to pay more often.
• Xeoncross 3y ago
  Punishment should fit the crime. We don't over-punish people to force them to think differently, that has always led to dark periods in history. There are plenty of low-friction ways consumers could be reimbursed plus the cost of lost time or energy spent on a now 'broken' printer if we wanted to solve this in a fair way.
  • codedokode 3y ago
    But in America people are overpunished. I often read titles like "he faces up to 100 years in a prison" when in reality it is just a poor Russian guy who didn't murder or hurt anyone, just collected credit card numbers and sold it to other guys. 100 years just for stealing a bit of money? That's draconian laws.
    • monksy 3y ago
      > when in reality it is just a poor Russian guy who didn't murder or hurt anyone, just collected credit card numbers and sold it to other guys. 100 years just for stealing a bit of money? That's draconian laws. So financial crimes aren't serious to you?
      • codedokode 3y ago
        4-5 years would be harsh enough for a crime where nobody gets hurt.
        • angelbar 3y ago
          Some people could die if they cant afford medical treatment because a digital fraud...
• JumpCrisscross 3y ago
  > CEO and the board must serve prison time for things like this. No measure less than prison for the CEO and all board members is enough to curtail this This is the sort of overreaction that kills reasonable responses, like making HP reimburse everyone whose printer they disabled, trebled, plus pay a big fine to a regulator and also enter into a consent decree. Hit them with a market cap decimating fine. Then let the Board eat its own.
  • ajuc 3y ago
    > like making HP reimburse everyone whose printer they disabled won't happen, because most of the customers live in different countries with different law systems > hit them with a market cap decimating fine won't happen, because most of the costs is beared by people in foreign countries who don't matter to US courts, and most of the profits are gathered by people in US (company, owners, shareholders, employees, budget) It's not an accident that most of the time google and apple are fined by EU and VW is fined by USA.
• gaze 3y ago
  It’s frustrating to see people argue this. Not because it’s wrong, but besides basically anything that makes it not worth doing will work. The debate to be had is over what is to be done to put policies that discourage this activity in place. Bikeshedding what to do basically just passifies the urge to debate the actually important thing.
• Spooky23 3y ago
  Why? HP has documented that they do this for years. The solution is really simple. Buy a printer that doesn’t do this. Many exist. They cost more, because HP sells these as loss leaders.
  • ryao 3y ago
    Which printers with ink cartridges does HP sell that are not loss leaders? Do they not do this on them?
    • Spooky23 3y ago
      I don’t follow the models closely as I don’t really care. For HP, basically you look at $350-500 devices as the entry point. Some of the commercial inkjet and all of the midrange laser printers don’t have these problems. Brother and Epson definitely offer devices with no ink controls. Canon used to, not sure about today. Epson sells a fixed print head printer with tanks of ink. HPs strategy is a subscription model for casual users. It’s probably the best value for most people, who don’t really care about print and want minimal viable capabilities. If it’s not for you, it’s a declining, although still competitive market.
• nimbius 3y ago
  Say what you will about Carly fiorinas leadership strategy but she certainly set a record for how fast you can pedal an american institution into the ground. If it weren't for government contracts and Gartner quadrant payola I don't think HP would even exist.
• testfoobar 3y ago
  In a competitive market, individual consumer decisions punish bad actors.
• bluescrn 3y ago
  Prison is excessive. But how about some sort of environmental levy on any device prematurely 'bricked', or disposed of before reaching a certain lifespan. Including those bricked by server shutdowns, or by the inevitable failure of non-replaceable batteries. Perhaps even those designed to be somewhat fragile but not economically repairable - thinking of all the phones and tablets discarded due to cracked screens.
  • brewdad 3y ago
    Isn’t an environmental levy just a fine? Maybe prison is excessive but there needs to be a way to punish bad actors personally on an individual level. It’s clear that current corporate level fines aren’t effective.
    • 8note 3y ago
      It's costed in differently. A fine requires you to be sued, whereas the levy applies immediately
• wdr1 3y ago
  > The CEO and the board must serve prison time for things like this. I'm not sure if it's hyperbole or not. If it's not, what law was broken? (Honest question. I'm not a fan of this, but I was curious if it's actually illegal.)
  • clnq 3y ago
    Maybe none. Everything was done above board, capitalism (growing capital as a core value) worked as intended. It was immoral and unethical but those are lesser concerns than maximising return on capital invested. Possibly, no law was clearly broken. We need to outsource some of our lawmaking to ethics boards/commissions if we want to keep capitalism. Otherwise, every other company is now looking to defraud its customers and that’s the only way an endless desire for capital growth (exponential growth expectations from investors) goes.
  • javajosh 3y ago
    Worth noting that we make things illegal when we feel they should be illegal, and for no other reason. In a democracy the feeling turns to a vote which turns to legislation. In this case, we would pass a law making executives personally criminally liable for anti-competative, anti-consumer behavior like this. I do not think it would run afoul of the Constitution, either. I think we should pass the law and try it out, see how it feels.
  • rocqua 3y ago
    The argument isn't. "This is illegal so the CEO should be jailed". Instead the argument is "This should be made illegal so the threat of jail ensures CEOs keep this from happening."
• josephcsible 3y ago
  A fine would totally work if it were big enough, e.g., 100% of the revenue of every affected printer and corresponding ink cartridge ever sold.
• znpy 3y ago
  If you don’t want to be held accountable you shouldn’t be ceo at all, in my opinion.
• deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
• quantum_state 3y ago
  100% on the mark!
• LeonB 3y ago
  While I support the notion of a lengthy spell of contemplation inside the walls of a prison for all CEOs of printer companies — even prior to this cartridge issue — I cannot help but feel that anything short of summary execution is excusable for the engineer or engineers who were responsible for the logic and error messages pertaining to “PC Load Letter”.
• slowmovintarget 3y ago
  Or have no one buy their printers...
• jimnotgym 3y ago
  They should also order that HP replaces all of the printers. Make it costly and hard work
• user6723 3y ago
  Hey mcny look up Intel ME/AMT, we probably agree there too.
• throwaway038519 3y ago
  It's at times like this that I'm reminded of what Howard Scott said: "A criminal is a person with predatory instincts who hasn't sufficient capital to form a corporation." Funny how access to enough money to form a corporation, does in certain circumstances tend to clothe your subsequent actions in virtue...