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EFF Calls On HP To Disable Printer Ink Self-Destruct Sequence (arstechnica.com)

Posted by msmash on from the fix-it dept.

HP should apologize to customers and restore the ability of printers to use third-party ink cartridges, the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) said in a letter to the company's CEO yesterday. From an ArsTechnica report:HP has been sabotaging OfficeJet Pro printers with firmware that prevents use of non-HP ink cartridges and even HP cartridges that have been refilled, forcing customers to buy more expensive ink directly from HP. The self-destruct mechanism informs customers that their ink cartridges are "damaged" and must be replaced. "The software update that prevented the use of third-party ink was reportedly distributed in March, but this anti-feature itself wasn't activated until September," EFF Special Advisor Cory Doctorow wrote in a letter to HP Inc. CEO Dion Weisler. "That means that HP knew, for at least six months, that some of its customers were buying your products because they believed they were compatible with any manufacturer's ink, while you had already planted a countdown timer in their property that would take this feature away. Your customers will have replaced their existing printers, or made purchasing recommendations to friends who trusted them on this basis. They are now left with a less useful printer -- and possibly a stockpile of useless third-party ink cartridges."

16 of 250 comments (clear)

  1. Just don't buy HP by mmiscool · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Just don't buy HP

    1. Re:Just don't buy HP by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

      That doesn't help all the people who bought HP before they knew this "feature" would activate at a later date.

    2. Re:Just don't buy HP by KiloByte · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Yeah, but "don't buy HP printers" has been good advice for at least 20 years.

      --
      The creatures outside looked from Alt-Right to Antifa; but already it was impossible to say which was which.
    3. Re:Just don't buy HP by spire3661 · · Score: 5, Insightful

      This is where we are now. Everything you buy today is sold with Darth Vader terms "I've altered the deal, pray i dont alter it further" with no recourse other than to not buy or stop using it. IN the past you could work around these things, but DMCA kills most of that.. Unless you are running open solutions, you are at their mercy. We are here, we have arrived. Its not some dystopian future, its here, now, today.

      --
      Good-bye
    4. Re:Just don't buy HP by thegarbz · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Just don't buy HP

      Ahhh yes. The USA. Freedom to get screwed over by corporations where the only power is to not buy from corporations after the fact, or to start a class action lawsuit netting the victims of corporate sabotage a $15 discount voucher for their next HP product. And when we're finished boycotting every company we can go back to using a mechanical pencil, at least until one company decides to release a 0.35mm version and their own super expensive refills for that.

      I think it's time the USA woke up to the fact that the anti-government / free market takes care of all of our problems approach is not necessarily having the best outcomes.

    5. Re:Just don't buy HP by thegarbz · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Yeah, but "don't buy HP printers" has been good advice for at least 20 years.

      So has don't buy Canon. Oh and didn't Lexmark start this whole cartridge encoding thing? And then there was Brother's reputation for jamming more than a fruit preservative factory.

      The only good advice is to use pencil and hope you never need to duplicate pages at home because quite frankly all printer companies have shown some level of dickish behaviour.

    6. Re:Just don't buy HP by David_Hart · · Score: 2, Insightful

      I print personally maybe once a year, for taxes. A moderately priced home printer isn't good enough for that. At work, I print maybe 2 or 3 additional times per year. Printing is just becoming extremely rare for me.

      My mother however likes to print a few times a year, and it's problematic. It's a second hand printer first of. But generally ink cartridges aren't working, nozzles get clogged, the color she wants is empty, several prints needed before it gets sized correctly, etc. If she understood things like thumb drives and how to use them she'd probably do better just taking it to the local drug store to print, or to a friend's house.

      Laser printer... No clogged heads, dried ink, etc....

  2. Brother laser printer $39 off Amazon by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Insightful

    I ran into this issue when the firmware auto updated and then all of the ink cartridges that I used to refill suddenly stopped working. There are a few hacks that involve putting tiny pieces of tape over the copper sensors of the ink cartridge, but it's not easily done. I ended up turning my HP printer into just a scanner and purchased a brother black/white laser printer off Amazon for $39. I've printed hundreds of documents and it's still running strong. My HP printer would print around 10 documents before running out of ink.

    Go laser and never look back, black and white preferable unless you really need to print photos or something. We use Walgreens online for photos so don't really mind. What HP doesn't understand is they are shooting themselves in the foot over the longterm just to make short term profits.

  3. The real (and very bad) message: no updates by whoever57 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    This promotes the notion that you should never install updates. That's a really bad lesson.

    --
    The real "Libtards" are the Libertarians!
    1. Re:The real (and very bad) message: no updates by Obfuscant · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Please show me this amazing code you have written

      I have this printer that does everything it was advertised to do correctly and prints just like it is supposed to. I have never seen it fail to produce a document that doesn't match the electronic version it was sent, except for hardware related issues (out of toner, e.g.)

      Why the hell would I want to "update" it when "update" means "change" and "change" means it may do something different than it used to? It is doing what I want; change is not necessary.

      I have yet to have any of my HP printers update anything. Maybe that's because I'm smart enough to not put the gateway address into the networked ones so they couldn't talk to a remote update server even if they tried.

  4. Back when there were no kids on my lawn... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Insightful

    I remember the olden days when HP made good printers. Expensive, but good. They'd last 10+ years with virtually no trouble. Their network connectivity was flawless and reliable. Their mechanical design was indestructible. The print quality was top notch.

    And then they started building "consumer" inkjet printers. And then they started marketing those low-grade printers to small offices. And then they jacked up the prices of ink. And now they're pulling this DMCA bullcrap. This is what "hell in a handbasket" looks like, and this is how legitimate businesses go to it.

    What once was done by being a competitive provider of goods and services has now been replaced with marketing and lobbying. Corporations, take heed: hell hath no fury like a woman scorned, but even that doesn't hold a candle to nerd rage. Do. Not. Piss. Off. The. Nerds. Or. They. Will. Put. You. Out. Of. Business. And. Use. Way. Too. Many. Single. Word. Sentence. Fragments.

  5. Re:Probably actually illegal by rijrunner · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Probably, but I am reminded of the Microsoft/Stacker lawsuit. Stacker was a company that did on-the-fly disk compression for DOS systems. Microsoft met up with them and went through a lot of due diligence and saw a lot of Stacker's software code as part of a discussion about Microsoft licensing Stacker for the next version of DOS. They did not reach an agreement. Microsoft then incorporated a product in the next version that looked a lot like Stacker. Stacker sued and eventually won, but was already driven out of business by the time everything cleared court.

    So, I ask you.. does it really matter if something is illegal if no one goes to jail and it is cheaper to pay a fine than deal with competition?

  6. The EFF? WTF? by jenningsthecat · · Score: 4, Insightful

    This strikes me as a contravention of anti-fraud and/or anti-trust laws, and should be the subject of criminal charges filed by various States and Federal attorneys. Sure, it's about Electronic Freedoms, and I'm glad the EFF is weighing in - but dammit, they shouldn't have to do so. Legal authorities should be doing their jobs.

    --
    'The Economy' is a giant Ponzi scheme whose most pitiable suckers are the youngest among us and the yet-unborn.
  7. Re:Probably actually illegal by Darinbob · · Score: 4, Insightful

    But will HP be punished enough so that they change their behavior? A suit is not always about getting rich.

  8. Re:Only one surprise by thegarbz · · Score: 4, Insightful

    The only surprise here is that anyone would still recommend HP printers.

    Since we don't recommend pretty much every printer company for various and often similar dickish behaviour (seriously you think HP had enough innovation left to come up with this? They just copied this from Lexmark, and added a time delay to make it look new), just what should we do?

  9. Modern day Peasents by Stan92057 · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Welcome to the decade where business tell YOU what you can and cant do with hardware you pay for. Dont expect Congress to help either, they are all millionaires who have stock in all these companies and those companies line their political campaign pockets as well. They are royalty we are their modern day peasants/slaves..because very few have the balls to say no.

    --
    Jack of all trades,master of none