Recently, the U.S. Federal Trade Commission (FTC) voted unanimously to make a push for the right of consumers to repair their electronic devices.

• All five FTC Commissioners voted in favour of a policy that seeks to know whether companies that are making it tougher for people to repair are violating antitrust laws.
• The vote was seen as a big win for the ‘Right to Repair’ movement, which has been making the case for allowing people to fix the products they buy.

Right To Repair movement:

It is a movement for the right of consumers to be able to repair their own electronics and other products.

• The goal of the movement is to get companies to make spare parts, tools and information on how to repair devices available to customers and repair shops to increase the lifespan of products and to keep them from ending up in landfills.
• The roots of this movement can be traced back to the very dawn of the computer era in the 1950s.

Why this movement was started?

In the 1950s, it was pointed out that Electronic Manufacturers are encouraging a culture of ‘planned obsolescence’.

• ‘Planned obsolescence’ is a marketing practice in which manufacturers artificially shorten product lifecycles and encourage consumers to buy new products every few years.
• This practice favoured sellers and made them influence buying decisions to improve sales and increase profit.
• This leads to immense pressure on the environment and wasted natural resources.
• More often the consumers are left at the mercy of manufacturers who make repairs inaccessible for most, by dictating who can fix your device and making it an inordinately expensive affair.

What happens in the era of mobile computing?

A new era of mobile computing and consumer culture was born after Apple co-founder Steve Jobs unveiled a phone with a touchscreen, 4GB storage, camera and web-browsing capability.

In just five years after its debut, over 200 million iPhones had been sold globally.

• Its success spawned the mobile computing industry and nudged users into upgrading their devices instead of fixing them when something went wrong.
• In the pre-iPhone era, certain issues in a mobile device could be repaired by the user themselves.
• It wasn’t the case anymore. To get an Apple product fixed, a buyer has to take it to an authorised dealer as any warranty on the product would become null and void if they opened the back of the smartphone.
• Even after taking the device to an authorised store, the cost of repair could be high.

Where does the movement stand today?

As of 2021, in the USA several states have proposed legislations to the right-to-repair act.

• The Motor Vehicles Owners’ Right to Repair Act required automobile manufacturers to provide necessary documents to allow third-party technicians to repair their vehicles.
• K.’s Right To Repair law took effect from July 1, and it requires appliance manufactures to provide consumers access to spare parts and make complicated parts available in professional repair shops.

Why is the movement important?

A consortium of advocacy groups is trying to push repair-friendly laws in the U.S. and break the DMCA stronghold.

• The Repair Association’s premise is that consumers can maintain their products, provided tools and information on fixing is available to them.
• Since its founding in 2013, the group has put several ‘Right to Repair’ proposals in state legislatures.
• The proposed legislation requires consumer electronics-makers to provide tools and information necessary to repair electronic products.
• This could change how companies operate by making them provide information and parts to unofficial repair centres, and, in the process, reduce costs for the consumer.

Benefits of the Right to Repair:

It will provide a boost to business for small repair shops, which are an important part of local economies.

How are tech companies reacting?

Tech giants including Amazon, Apple, Microsoft, and Tesla disfavour the movement stating it threatens the protection of intellectual property and trade secrets.

• Their argument is that opening up their intellectual property to third party repair services or amateur repairers could lead to exploitation and impact the safety and security of their devices.
• TechNet, a trade group representing large tech firms, said allowing unvetted parties to access sensitive information, tools and components would “jeopardise safety of consumers’ device and put consumers at risk of fraud”.

Source: The Hindu