Lobbyists persuaded California to table its right-to-repair bill

[Cal Jeffrey]

Not again: Once again lobbyists from major tech corporations have halted legislation that would give Californians the right to repair their electronic devices. One proponent representing Apple brought an iPhone to meetings with legislators as a prop to point out how consumers could get hurt if they punctured the lithium-ion battery.

For the second year in a row, Apple lobbyists have stifled California’s attempts at a right-to-repair law. Last year, the Golden State introduced the California Right to Repair Act, which lobbyists for major tech corporations were able to block. Not wanting to give up, legislators reintroduced a the bill (AB 1163) in March of this year, and that effort has already been stymied.

According to Motherboard, Assembly members were scheduled to hold a hearing on Tuesday to vote on the legislation. Before the vote could be held, the bill was pulled by its sponsor Susan Talamantes-Eggman.

"Today I decided to pull Assembly Bill 1163 from consideration in the Privacy and Consumer Protection Committee, with the goal of moving the bill in January of next year."

“It became clear that the bill would not have the support it needed today, and manufacturers had sown enough doubt with vague and unbacked claims of privacy and security concerns,” she said in a statement on Tuesday.

According to sources within the California State Assembly, lobbyists from Apple and CompTIA met on more than one occasion with members of the Privacy and Consumer Protection Committee. In the meetings, the bill’s proponents showed the lawmakers internal components of an iPhone and urged them to nix the proposal for fear that consumers could hurt themselves if they punctured the battery during disassembly. The members requested to remain anonymous because they were not authorized to speak to the media.

An appeal to public safety is a common tactic when trying to dissuade almost any type of legislation or regulation. The problem in this case is that Apple, and to be fair others like AT&T and Microsoft, are not only preventing the general public from repairing their devices, but also third-party professional repair techs who know what they are doing.

Fortunately, the fight is not over. Assembly bill 1163 has not been trashed. It has just been tabled until January 2020, when the assembly will bring it up for a vote once more. You can bet lobbyists will again try to intervene.

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https://www.techspot.com/news/79912-lobbyists-persuaded-california-table-right-repair-bill.html

 

[Evernessince]

The risk of you hurting yourself by repairing your phone is less then the risk you take every time you drive. Batteries are not easy to puncture nor will they explode unless put under tremendous pressure, neither of which should be a issue during a repair.

 

[stewi0001]

Don't they have anything else better to do?

 

[Jeff Schmidt]

This is why we need to ban lobbyists and put term limits on elected civil servants. The amount of money that is spent by companies on lobbyists is beyond belief. Career politicians are destroying this country to get themselves rich. And you can't expect the main street media to do anything or say anything about it. Because they are either incompetent or in bed with these companies.

Now for fixing your phone yourself. If you do it and screw it up then your warranty should be void. Too many people think they know what they are doing and have no clue. Then complain about the company because they can't handle the truth that they are a ***** and can't accept the mistake they made.

 

[yRaz]

If lithium ion batteries are so dangerous, why do we keep putting them in devices that frequently get damaged and covered in broken glass?

Perhaps Corning should stop making gorilla glass for smartphones as the shards can get lodged in someones skin. But, you know, I guess repairing an iPhone is more dangerous to the public's health than the Chinese slave labor used to make them. Thanks for looking out, guys.

You know, I honestly thought this would pass in CA. They're a nanny state but this is just the type of thing they'd want to pass. I guess everyone is fighting it so much because if it passes in CA the tech will already exist somewhere. Once the State of Cancer, known to cause California, there really would be no reason to NOT implement it

 

[Cycloid Torus]

Some olives have pits removed in a mechanical process which does not always work. We need to protect the public from the possibility of an olive pit in every pitted olive by preventing the consumption of olives. Its a matter of public safety.

Just wait for the next one..bubble gum hazards..

 

[gusticles41]

Consumers should be afraid of batteries? That's the best they could come up with?

Lobbying is fking evil.

 

[wiyosaya]

Some olives have pits removed in a mechanical process which does not always work. We need to protect the public from the possibility of an olive pit in every pitted olive by preventing the consumption of olives. Its a matter of public safety.

Just wait for the next one..bubble gum hazards..

You forgot to mention breathing and drinking water.

 

[ForgottenLegion]

I want to personally hang all these evil corporate stooges in the streets.

America is the most corrupt nation on earth.
When the people in charge of the country are actively trying to make it worse to line their own pockets you know the place is f***ed.

The I don't want to live on this planet anymore meme rarely sees a more fitting use case.

 

[wiyosaya]

The risk of you hurting yourself by repairing your phone is less then the risk you take every time you drive. Batteries are not easy to puncture nor will they explode unless put under tremendous pressure, neither of which should be a issue during a repair.

I guess they were thinking of people with a sub 80 IQ when crApple did this demonstration. To crApple, everyone has a sub 80 IQ.

 

[gusticles41]

When the people in charge of the country are actively trying to make it worse to line their own pockets you know the place is f***ed.

Yup, and the rich have surrounded themselves with these politicians to make it 100% legal. "Law" is not always ethical.

 

[QuantumPhysics]

I side with Apple on this.

I'd be out of my mind to attempt to open up my $1577 phone, replace a battery and then have to put the water-resistant material resin back in place and believe that I'd done everything right when I'm working with tiny screws and ribbon cables.

 

[Theinsanegamer]

I work among many liberal coworkers, many of whom have whinged and whined nonstop about how corrupt trump is, how horrible conservatives are, how they are all bought by big business and dont care about American citizens, blah blah blah.

Yet here we have a liberal utopia, a state where democrats have uncontested control, and they prove to be just as corrupt and uncaring about their constituents as the conservatives they attack on a daily basis. Here is a bill that would help american citizens, and is against the wishes of big corporations, and those same screeching lawmakers are being bought by corporations without even trying to hide it.

This is blatant corporate bribery. There is no way a lawmaker would really buy these arguments unless they are being *convinced* to do so by corporate overlords. And it is being done by the very politicians that claim they are looking out for us, by the very same politicians that claim the *other* politicians are the corporate shills.

 

[dob_1]

Go to Singapore! They've already banned bubble gum! Big fines for selling or chewing it!

 

[Zodwraith]

I didn't have to read past the title to know this was perpetrated by Apple, the king of proprietary hardware and $79 charging cables. They pretty much own the souls of every Californian politician.

If this were any big evil Corp besides Apple, it would have already been crushed by antitrust/monopolistic suits. Remember Microsoft getting sued for including Internet Explorer with Windows for FREE? Apple is guilty of so much worse but has such a blind rabid following that I swear I'm the only one that can see the king isn't wearing any clothes.

 

[petert]

On the other hand EU is pushing strongly for the right to repair. Laws will be put in place to force manufacturers to make their products more repairable .... Corruption is present there too and on top of that you might even call them socialists and for once you will not be wrong. One thing they are not though - they are not retarded. If it only takes apple lobbyists to show up and puncture a battery to change your mind ... well to put it mildly you are not very bright.

 

[gusticles41]

Yet here we have a liberal utopia, a state where democrats have uncontested control, and they prove to be just as corrupt and uncaring about their constituents as the conservatives they attack on a daily basis. Here is a bill that would help american citizens, and is against the wishes of big corporations, and those same screeching lawmakers are being bought by corporations without even trying to hide it.

I certainly consider myself to be more Liberal, but I don't care if you're red or blue. End lobbying and vote anyone out who accepts these bribes.

 

[wiyosaya]

I work among many liberal coworkers, many of whom have whinged and whined nonstop about how corrupt trump is, how horrible conservatives are, how they are all bought by big business and dont care about American citizens, blah blah blah.

Yet here we have a liberal utopia, a state where democrats have uncontested control, and they prove to be just as corrupt and uncaring about their constituents as the conservatives they attack on a daily basis. Here is a bill that would help american citizens, and is against the wishes of big corporations, and those same screeching lawmakers are being bought by corporations without even trying to hide it.

This is blatant corporate bribery. There is no way a lawmaker would really buy these arguments unless they are being *convinced* to do so by corporate overlords. And it is being done by the very politicians that claim they are looking out for us, by the very same politicians that claim the *other* politicians are the corporate shills.

I think its pretty easy to say something along the lines of "WTF? This is California, land of the unbridled liberal, home of the Democrats. Why did this measure get defeated?"

As I see it, this is likely because of two factors:

1. crApple probably hired someone to do some of the stupidest things in their demonstration that no one with an iota of technical knowledge would ever do while repairing one of these devices, and look! OMG! I just stuck my screwdriver through a lithium battery and, OMG there's smoke and a fire. See how dangerous repairing one of these things can be!

2. As pretty much everyone here at TechSpot knows, when it comes to technology, politicians are positively brain-dead beyond compare regardless of what side of the aisle they are on. So, after seeing an asinine demonstration, they were probably thinking something along the lines of "OMG! Repairing one of these things can be really dangerous. This could be hazardous to the health of our constituents. We cannot support this."

So I'll give them the benefit of the doubt in that they thought, even though it was through ignorance, they they were protecting people from, gasp, themselves.

However, if there had been someone there at these hearings that was technically astute, they could have demonstrated that it is possible to repair these things without getting so much as a scratch. For whatever reason, I bet that there was no such person there at any of the hearings on this matter.

The bigger blame, IMO, is entirely on crApple. They want their devices to fail at some point. After all, they only have some $400 bn in the bank. They need more money, and if the device wears out at some point, that will certainly send the user of one of these devices rushing back to crApple for more abuse.

As I see it, it would be relatively easy for crApple to somewhat redesign these cases, add a few screws and a nice nitrile gasket to maintain waterproofing and voila - a user repairable device is born.

But, hey, NO! That's too expensive. Not only in the small extra cost for the gasket and screws, but it would take their vastly underpaid work force extra time to put this together - compared to the splot of hot glue from a glue gun. After all, crApple only has $400 bn in the bank. crApple needs more money. crApple would fall apart if they could not count on their devices failing every few years and people buying more of them, and WTF? Pay their employees a few extra pennys? Who would be so foolish to expect that of crApple?

 

[Toju Mikie]

I side with Apple on this.

I'd be out of my mind to attempt to open up my $1577 phone, replace a battery and then have to put the water-resistant material resin back in place and believe that I'd done everything right when I'm working with tiny screws and ribbon cables.

Sounds like a newer phone, which is still under warranty. Of course you should go through warranty instead of self-repair in that case, but if it's an older phone then feel free to go nuts on it. Better a repaired phone that you can sell or give to someone else than the device ending up in a landfill.

 

[RickRick]

Let's not forget - Apple was the driving force behind the eBook price fixing scheme years ago and paid millions in fines.