Biden order calls for net neutrality, antitrust action, ISP competition – and right to repair your own damn phone US President Joseph Biden on Friday signed a sweeping executive order directing government agencies to take steps intended to enhance economic competition and prevent anticompetitive practices, among the tech industry as well as others. The Executive Order on Promoting Competition in the American Economy includes 72 …
"signed a sweeping executive order directing government agencies to take steps"
So basically smoke and mirrors. Biden is directing the agencies to do something, but it is up to those agencies of whether to follow through. and by how much. So Biden can now say he did something, and if things don't happen the way people expect, he can turn around and say that he wasn't to blame.
We're not suing to get money from the government. Get that thought out of your pointy little head.
What we're suing for is to be allowed to fix/repair/augment equipment as suits ourselves, the purchaser of the equipment, not as suits the manufacturers of that equipment. And for the right to choose a third party to make that repair if we like. And for the right to become that third party. And for the right to be a third party supplier of replacement parts. Etc.
This is about empowering the intelligent consumer, not making money for a few lawyers.
Do you have a better plan?? With the Republicans constantly obstructing anything that they themselves didn't begin, especially anything that can even possibly hurt their corporate masters, I'd like you see you come up with policy bills that will get enough bilateral votes to pass.
This is a game play to bypass the McDonnell-led obstructionism. If it's the best that can be done because the same 37% of the electorate constantly vote against their own best interests, then this is the best and we'll see how far it goes. Then readjust after the reaction is known.
Well they can do away with the filibuster so things can actually get done.
Then pass appropriate voting laws so that the Republicans can no longer rig the system in their favor. Finally appoint a few more judges to the Supreme Court.
With that all in place the Republicans will never win again until they abandon their current stupid ways
"Biden is directing the agencies to do something, but it is up to those agencies of whether to follow through. and by how much. " Sort of you are totally OTT. You also fail to consider what would have happened if specific actions were demanded - the screams would have been unmerciful from woke cancel culture twatwaffles like you.
"the FTC will be asked to "issue rules against anticompetitive restrictions on using independent repair shops or doing DIY repairs of your own devices and equipment."
Will the Biden Bunch reign in the EPA illegally putting a stop to small businesses building, selling and installing aftermarket parts on automobiles? To say nothing of the very same EPA claiming that it is illegal to convert a vehicle built for street use into a race vehicle, thus destroying the livelihoods of untold numbers of small Mom&Pop race shops across the USA?
So when and where are you taking your Mom for her first race? Most drag strips will happily allow your mom to run her minivan down the track ... usually Wednesday evenings for this kind of thing. She'll also probably be made welcome if somebody has rented the track for a private test & tune day ... they'll welcome the distraction, and probably go out of their way to help her improve her times.
Be careful ... I've seen people (moms included!) become addicted to it after one time out. Even in a slow vehicle.
get educated
The Magnuson-Moss Warranty Act prohibits product manufacturers from conditioning consumer warranties on the use of any original equipment part or service. Furthermore, a manufacturer can only deny warranty coverage if it can demonstrate that a non-original equipment part or related service caused a defect to occur in the original product. In the case of motor vehicles, new car manufacturers have ignored these conditions outlined in Magnuson-Moss and have misled consumers to believe that they must have dealer service shops install only original equipment replacement parts or fear having their new car warranty voided.
South Africa has recently introduced legislation to curb that practice. Manufacturers can no longer demand cars be serviced only through their anointed channels. It spreads liability around a bit, but at least it means third party service, repairs and parts can no longer be deemed sub-standard by default and the manufacturers will have to justify rejecting warranty claims.
Not sure where you are but here in Oz that's not the case.
Same with printer manufacturers saying you can only use their inks or void warranty.
Powers that be said "Nope. Unless you can prove this ink was directly the cause of the explosion or whatever, no affect on customer's warranty. Case closed."
Of course, your mileage may vary ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
but a $500 phone I can't ?
Companies should also be required to open bootloaders or at least give a possibility to bring your own - and so producing all documentation necessary to accomplish such a thing.
Now, I don't think right to repair should only be limited to hardware. People buying software should also be entitled to repair it, e.g. if the company does not fix bugs, you should be able to request the source code and get your Photoshop or soundcard driver or other tool to a software developer to fix it.
While I fully support it, it's not gonna happen. Opening bootloaders opens doors to admin-level access. While this helps re-viving those handsets designed for obsolescence (like mine!), more and more of our lives are managed (and mis-managed) via our phones. Banking is one of those 'sensitive' areas, medical apps is another. Neither banks, nor manufacturers will want to get tangled in long-term, costly legal wrangle if they're attacked for allowing handset 'exposure' due to their "negligence / allowing and publicizing ways to gain unauthorized access", etc.
> What next? Remove admin access from Windows and Mac OS for the same reason?
Well, I for one wouldn't be surprised if it happened, sooner or later.
The general trend is to limit streamline user actions, and for dumb users to be milked for money, admin access is not needed or even desirable: Let them subscribe to our support plan...
Opening bootloaders opens doors to admin-level access. (...)
Banking is one of those 'sensitive' areas, medical apps is another.
That is completely irrelevant. You can have full admin access to the device without being able to read your banking's app data.
If that's still concerning, the bootloader unlocking would simply generate new encryption keys and all data on the device would no longer be accessible - you'd essentially get factory reset device and no ability to recover any "old" data.
It's really a poor excuse to not allow it.
Since now most technology is being produced and invented in China it makes sense for the government to mandate release of schematics and parts, so that American companies can catch up and save money on R&D.
Since the 90s until now, American companies stopped publishing schematics and hidden as much of information as possible, to stop Asian companies from cloning their products, and at the same time they found they can make extra money on "authorised repairs" and planned obsolescence (we can't fix it, buy new!).
Interesting turn of events.
Really? Throughout history inventions and innovations have been made all over the world at various times, with the ebb and flow of societies.
Most of the science and products we tae for granted comes from India, China and Arabia, but all those societies fell into decline and other countries took over.
Recently India and China have started regaining their place amongst inventive societies, much to the alarm of some and denial of the racists.
One of the problems is that the right wing business controlled Western media never seems to report on Indian or Chinese inventions, no doubt to keep the domestic proles subjugated. Just like the PRC media.
https://www.ecosia.org/search?q=recent%20chines%20inventions
I think the concept of publicly traded companies and exchanges made the mockery of capitalism and economically enslaved the nation. "Capitalist" companies too big to fail, are no different from state owned companies in the communist regimes.
Companies should be divided once they grow beyond certain threshold, just like cells in nature divide.
Otherwise they become a cancer on the economy.
I do not believe its mere company "bigness" but another often overlooked issue.
Freedom to fail is the issue here.
No company must be "too big to fail" or else every company will try to get big, no matter if thats feasible or makes any sense. Get "too big to fail" and you have your everlasting "get out of bankruptcy free" card, leading to even more mismanagement and inefficiency.
There is no "too big to fail", this is like the presumed "system relevancy" directly connected to the amount of corruption and other ties to government parties.
In Germany, the owner of Trigema, a sportswear manufacturer regularly calls for the reinstatement of (personal !!!) responsibility and liability on every level of management.
No golden parachutes. Whoever destroys the company pays up.
We had our own "system relevant" banks and other criminal organisations in 2008 and whoever took a closer look found, that the only real system relevance was down to some investments held by those banks that secured insurances and pension funds. Why those really relevant investments could not have been bought by the state instead of giving the banks money for nothing in return and additionally establishing a state owned bad bank for all dodgy certificates, toxic shares and suchlike is someting not covered by the "too big to fail" and "system relevant" propaganda.
Want "free market" ? Freedom to fail is part of "free".
These too big to fail companies would fail less often if they focused on the long term rather than the next quarter. Cap executive salaries at a couple hundred thousand with any additional compensation coming in the form of stock with a 5 year vesting period.
And make stock buy backs illegal again to get rid of some of the stock manipulation shenanigans. Then they will actually need to manage the company in a sustainable manner if they want to make the big bucks
Somebody I know is a died in the wool Republican who believes that what happened to President Trump on Twatter and Facebork was censorship. They don't think politicians should be able to be banned from posting on these and similar sites. However they'r are also the first to complain about government interference in businesses. When I suggested banning politics and politicians from these sites it went down badly. Similarly when I asked if they agreed with President Trump using his personal Twitter not the official Whitehouse/POTUS one whilst President.
He suggested that Google, Twitter, Facebook, AWS, etc. are monopolies. I said you're not forced to use them and if enough people didn't the firms would suffer financially. I suggested that the London Underground was a monopoly. I said they're the sole provider of underground railways in London. However it's different if you're Big Tech apparently, at least according to him. It's impossible to put up whatever you want the world to see, you certainly can't set up your own website/webserver........I'm told by him anyway.
I wholeheartedly agree with right to repair and find it ridiculous it's taken this long to tackle the problem. Personally I'd add removing bloatware too.
Similarly when I asked if they agreed with President Trump using his personal Twitter not the official Whitehouse/POTUS one whilst President.
It's fine. Clinton used her personal email server instead of the official State Department one.
He suggested that Google, Twitter, Facebook, AWS, etc. are monopolies. I said you're not forced to use them and if enough people didn't the firms would suffer financially.
That one gets a bit more complex. So the US has laws regarding archiving official correspondence. Clinton broke those, so perhaps did Trump. Or just gave the official archivists an additional challenge to archive all Trump's social media utterances. This is possibly an aspect of legislation not keeping up with technology, or just whether Presidential Archives are really a good thing. Especially given a lot seem to be hard copy. Digitising those could be a fascinating project for historians though.
But there's also been a bunch of fuss about hostile actors, ie Trump.. I mean Russia using honest American social media stuff to influence elections. That of course is the sole purvue of the US's two and some bits parties, who of course use Twatter & Facepalm to officially engage with and communicate to potential voters.
Which is the fun part. If those platforms are 'official', and many federal and state entities use them for official communications.. Then is it right to censor some or all of those, if it offends someone's political sensibilities?
Currently it is, ie their house, their rules. But stopping a sitting President from communicating via some of the biggest social media platforms was a bold and risky move, and it's easy to cry censorship. Then again, friends shouldn't let friends use either Twatter or Facepalm.
"It's fine. Clinton used her personal email server instead of the official State Department one." In no way relatable.
"Clinton broke those, so perhaps did Trump" If clinton did then Trump did. Lest we forget that was a major platform during the election campaign, so if it was so massively important then Trump and the current GOP are blatant hypocrites Which if course they are.
you seem to be ignoring that Pence was a vocal critic of Hillary Clinton's private email server set-up. His email account was last summer when many of his contacts received emails saying Mr Pence and his wife had become stranded in the Philippines and urgently needed money.
it seems that while Mr Pence was throwing rocks at the Democratic nominee last year, he was living in a digital glass house.
Guess who else has a private email server they use for official govt business:
Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker (R)
New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie (R)
Florida Sen. Marco Rubio (R)
Former Texas Gov. Rick Perry (R) and Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal (R)
Colin Powell
Condoleeza Rice
Guess who lost 155,000 email messages by using a private unsecured email server for official govt work...
If you guessed George W. Bush, give yourself an pat on the back!
Funny that both you and the GOP have very, very selective memories isn't it.
GOP = Party of lying hypocrites.
Sometimes your personal favourites are simply so bad that any news about their (mis)deeds seem to be advertisements for "the enemy" (tm).
That´s a game that germanys pseudo ecological party ("die Grünen") actually plays as more and more of the multiple issues of their favoured candidatess surface.
I wouldn´t dare to judge if Biden is any better than any other US president as i have enough issues with the regular "choose the worst possible candidate" event that every party in germany celebrates every election period.
At least we officially have six "different" parties in the Bundestag. Doesn´t change much apart from more different colours on the election posters but if there is no political difference, at least there is "artistical" difference.
As with enforcing the rules, same sad picture here. Whatever "watchdog" has been instated, its constantly fast asleep or redirects the responsibility to the complainants.
Although we're schooled from the cradle to think that capitalism is all about competition benefiting the consumer and so on in reality its name says it all -- its all about capital. This has huge implications that are always being glossed over because of all the inconvenient truths it exposes. Return on Investment, for example. Capitalists want the highest yield for the lowest investment (like everyone else) so naturally they want to eliminate competition (form monopolies or cartels) and manage markets to sell what product they have for the highest prices. It really isn't important to them whether their activity is socially useful or not, their world is the spreadsheet and if the spreadsheet says that they can make more money by investing in a parasitic activity -- or laying off thousands of workers -- then that will be the course of action chosen (tempered by any legal or public relations considerations -- timing is everything).
We've been through a generation of deregulation, unfettering capitalism to do what it does best. I don't know why people complain so much -- they keep voting for this. They may have noticed that their views are irrelevant since with the media consolidated and government captured they're not really that important any more -- as some notable dictators in the past (and one or two Republican politicians of today) have noted its not the number of votes that count but their quality.
... but what's to stop companies from using counter measures? e.g. if a tractor encases the main board in epoxy so even if a capacitor pops the whole thing is an expensive replacement.
And on a more basic day to day level with consumer electronics, we've already how legislation has done nothing to stop devices from glueing and sealing the battery in. It is reasonable that someone might want to replace the battery and legislation should be such that it should be easy to do without special tools, e.g. make the back cover removable like it used to be.
Obviously there is a lot of grey area. e.g. devices with software agreements & firmware, devices that come with subscriptions etc. but legislation should be smart enough to account for that.
> You can see where this all falls down, yes?
Where all this falls down is that there is the spirit of the law, which is simple and obvious, but what gets applied in court is the letter of the law, which means that all that finally matters is some semantic battle over what a given phrase really means.
As a result, a simple notion like the right to repair stuff you bought will need to be encased in a appallingly huge mountain of words and formulations, and yet some lawyer will still find a loophole and all will have been in vain.
Any Right to Repair legislation must incorporate terms to limit methods of manufacture that are deliberately obstructive to normal repair methods.
That should include the unecessary sealing of components in matrix or the use of specialised tools that ate specifically designed to make self or third party repair difficult or impossible.
Additionally, many manufacturers include relatively cheap short life components such as bearings into expensive sub assemblies that push a repair beyond economical. Those situations should also be covered.
And how about the requirement to unlock any software lock whenever the manufacturer stops the "support" and updates ?
Concerning mobiles and other software locked things, that would also mean unlocking the hardware after the two year contract - or at the day of purchase if bought at once.
Sadly i see a stream of "slightly" different replacement parts coming if any real right to repair is instated as each and every new (sub)model might have intentional "tolerances" and "design features" built in. Remember how long it took to pseudo enforce a halfway standardised USB port... Then take a look at LTE and its unwanted child 5G.
... but what's to stop companies from using counter measures? e.g. if a tractor encases the main board in epoxy so even if a capacitor pops the whole thing is an expensive replacement.
Already happening, as you say with non-replaceable batteries. See also-
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vVSw3KSevEc
Tesla wanted $16,000 to fix this NEW Model 3, we did it for $700! The importance of Right to REPAIR!
Bloke in a Model 3 runs over something in the road, minor collision writes off the vehicle. For whatever reason, a connector between the battery pack and the cooling system ended up cracked. Tesla wanted $16k to fix this by replacing the entire battery pack, even though the fix really involved replacing a part that probably costs <$1.
So ok, the cooling system is a tad critical to prevent unwanted cabin heating. But as they point out, it's a low temperature & pressure system and a simple fix. There were some other issues highlighted, like the lack of Tesla service facilities that can do said fixes. Or Tesla apparently refusing to let the driver keep the old battery pack, even though that's a legal right where the driver lived. Lucrative though if you can refurb the battery and sell it again for another $16k.
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