FTC: Most smart device makers are breaking the law by not informing consumers of software support terms

[nanoguy]

In context: For consumers using a variety of smart home gadgets, there's nothing more infuriating than spending hundreds or thousands of dollars on products rendered unusable or left with limited functionality after software support ends. Companies sometimes offer subscription fees for continued support, essentially holding functionality hostage.

In September, representatives from iFixit, the Electronic Frontier Foundation, and Consumer Reports sent a letter to Samuel Levine, director of the FTC's Bureau of Consumer Protection, and Serena Viswanathan, the FTC's Division of Advertising Practices associate director. The letter pointed out the prevalence of anti-consumer practices among smart device manufacturers and their effect on people's ability to truly own the devices they purchase.

A new FTC study found that many companies developing and selling smart gadgets fail to disclose the length of support service for those products. After examining 184 devices across 64 product categories, the agency found that only 11.3 percent shared information about the software support duration on their product page.

Most of those devices – 89 percent – failed to feature this information prominently on the manufacturers' websites or any material related to the products. Considering how easy it should be to find details online about the end date for software updates, the agency couldn't find anything at all for 124 of the devices included in the study. It also noted that search features like Google's AI Overviews make this even more challenging for the average consumer, as the results are often wrong or misleading.

The FTC warns that, for products with written warranties and costing $15 or more, failing to disclose this crucial information violates the Magnuson Moss Warranty Act. Additionally, the agency found that even when some information about software support is available, the language is ambiguous and misleading.

Phrases like "continuous software updates," "lifetime technical support," and "as long as your device is fully operational" were found in product-related materials that were sometimes at odds with reality. For instance, one device featured "lifetime support" on its product page but had not issued any security updates since 2021. Another device with a similar promise on the product page showed support ends in 2028 in a different section of the website.

The findings confirm the need for what the consumer rights groups advocated for in their letter to the FTC. They say new rules for smart device manufacturers would give consumers a better understanding of how long their internet-connected gadgets should work, thus allowing them to make an informed decision. It would also enforce competition between OEMs to design longer-lasting devices.

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FTC: Most smart device makers are breaking the law by not informing consumers of software support terms

 

[The Talking Tech]

I'm living proof of that.... Roku is known to do this... I have a perfectly working Roku 4 that started getting messages of "End of Support" for Disney and Hulu, but my friend has a much older device in which those apps have never shown a problem indicating Roku was creating an issue in partnership with Disney in order to force me to upgrade....I upgraded alright BUT never again with a Roku.

If other device manufacturers are forcing us to unnecessarily upgrade the FTC needs to jump on this issue ASAP.

 

[rmcrys]

The programed obsolescence is known from many brands (all?), under different forms: very limited battery lifetime; limited software updates; artificial slowdown; end of a service though the company is still much alive.

I still have products from Samsung that didn't receive support for more than 3 years but they are working as expected much longer than that; though, I had printers from HP or Teclast tablets that after an year got zero support even if the drivers/ software work really bad and are full of bugs. In Europe and other civilized regions it should exist a law of at least 5 years of support (security and issues) with at least 2 of full OS Updates. And in 2024, batteries with more than 1000 cycles to 80% should be mandatory.

 

[nismo91]

Android is probably the worst. I still use Android phone but I hate the thing it has become.

think about it, before Android became mainstream 14 years ago, it was the OS that unite brands. it was deemed as the "flexible" OS because you can sideload apps, and it was far more customizable than iOS or WP OS at the time. the best part is that you can choose any phone manufacturer, as long as it ran Android OS the rest doesn't seem to matter much. that also means you can buy any type of phone, a rugged phone, flip phone, sliding phone etc as long as it ran that OS you're good to go for the next few years.

look at it now. yearly upgrades that brought no real life improvement. I still think that after Android 10 progress has been slow, especially compared to iOS in the past 5 years. there's just so much fragmentation that software devs have no choice but to discontinue supporting older platform, even if they have enough processing power to run the apps.

let's put it this way, phones with Android 7.0 OS which was released in 2016 couldn't use official youtube app anymore. just imagine if you have i3 computer from 2016 with windows 10 and you aren't allowed to use youtube because the devs says you have to upgrade your OS.

to make things worse, with every new version of Android, it will not run legacy apps for certain OS version anymore. I have few apps that don't run anymore after updating to Android 14 last year. I mean that's the whole reason I bought an Android phone, because I need flexibility. updates and upgrades are good, but doesn't mean you cut off legacy compatibility.

I miss the old days of Android phone, where manufacturers are racing to be innovative and the devs supported them. I still remember the days where a new Android OS means a new support for say a fingerprint reader or new audio/video codec support. back then we were excited to upgrade. right now I upgrade my OS just because I wanted to make sure I can run every apps. there are few instances where some of my apps doesn't run properly in old OS but run normally in the new OS. it's almost like the opposite of Windows OS where you rarely encounter problems if you don't upgrade.

 

[gamerk2]

Android is probably the worst. I still use Android phone but I hate the thing it has become.

think about it, before Android became mainstream 14 years ago, it was the OS that unite brands. it was deemed as the "flexible" OS because you can sideload apps, and it was far more customizable than iOS or WP OS at the time. the best part is that you can choose any phone manufacturer, as long as it ran Android OS the rest doesn't seem to matter much. that also means you can buy any type of phone, a rugged phone, flip phone, sliding phone etc as long as it ran that OS you're good to go for the next few years.

look at it now. yearly upgrades that brought no real life improvement. I still think that after Android 10 progress has been slow, especially compared to iOS in the past 5 years. there's just so much fragmentation that software devs have no choice but to discontinue supporting older platform, even if they have enough processing power to run the apps.

let's put it this way, phones with Android 7.0 OS which was released in 2016 couldn't use official youtube app anymore. just imagine if you have i3 computer from 2016 with windows 10 and you aren't allowed to use youtube because the devs says you have to upgrade your OS.

to make things worse, with every new version of Android, it will not run legacy apps for certain OS version anymore. I have few apps that don't run anymore after updating to Android 14 last year. I mean that's the whole reason I bought an Android phone, because I need flexibility. updates and upgrades are good, but doesn't mean you cut off legacy compatibility.

I miss the old days of Android phone, where manufacturers are racing to be innovative and the devs supported them. I still remember the days where a new Android OS means a new support for say a fingerprint reader or new audio/video codec support. back then we were excited to upgrade. right now I upgrade my OS just because I wanted to make sure I can run every apps. there are few instances where some of my apps doesn't run properly in old OS but run normally in the new OS. it's almost like the opposite of Windows OS where you rarely encounter problems if you don't upgrade.

Speaking as a Software Developer, this is why Windows maintaining binary compatibility makes it our preferred target; yes, there are parts of the API you *really* shouldn't use anymore, but it still works. Pretty much every other OS out there doesn't do this; they *expect* you to recompile everything everytime a new OS comes out, then wonder why a bunch of apps just stop getting updated after a while.

 

[nismo91]

Speaking as a Software Developer, this is why Windows maintaining binary compatibility makes it our preferred target; yes, there are parts of the API you *really* shouldn't use anymore, but it still works. Pretty much every other OS out there doesn't do this; they *expect* you to recompile everything everytime a new OS comes out, then wonder why a bunch of apps just stop getting updated after a while.

exactly. I'd much rather have the software tries to run in sort of compatibility mode in the new OS, or have the software break with the new OS altogether, rather than have Google tells me no you're not running ancient software simply because we told you so.

worst part is when an app is delisted from the playstore because a new OS came out and they expect the devs to update it, even if it's just a simple program.

 

[gamerk2]

exactly. I'd much rather have the software tries to run in sort of compatibility mode in the new OS, or have the software break with the new OS altogether, rather than have Google tells me no you're not running ancient software simply because we told you so.

worst part is when an app is delisted from the playstore because a new OS came out and they expect the devs to update it, even if it's just a simple program.

Technically...the best solution is the "every APP is an instance of a VM", eg, running an app kicks off a VM for a given OS that runs *just* that app, where only higher level Input/Output is handled by the host OS. This trivializes compatibility and security.

 

[H8dAmazon420yrs]

I had a gut full just with being an iPhone user. At one time I has 2 iOS updates hit me within the same day, and none of the updated features would affect my model iPhone in the least! So, I for one really do appreciate the FTC going deeper into this mess.I realize they may not be investigating Apple, but I trust they'll be doing others a lot of good, and bringing a lot of these ridiculous scare tactics to light.