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”
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.
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.)
At the end of the day I'm not sure that a lock that prevents you from using non-authorized equipment/refills/whatever is very different from established practice. If they bricked the printer altogether sure, that'd be a new frontier, and it seems like many commenters have erroneously understood that to be the story, but that's not what's going on.
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”