> Sometimes, this situation is slyly camouflaged: Ulefone information sheets list a link that looks genuine (https://www.ulefone.com/pages/support-centers), but if you click the ‘parts store button’ on that page, it takes you to Aliexpress. When ordering parts from non-EU web stores, you as a consumer would be the importer and as such, responsible for paying import duties as well as ensuring compliance with all regulations.
But if you actually click through to that page, it is very specifically _their_ AliExpress store, not just any old random page on AliExpress. It's not clear to me that that's actually non-compliant with the Ecodesign regulation, even if it's not ideal that the consumer is the importer of record.
So let me trot out mine: regulation is good so long as it is backed up by even handed, robust, transparent, quick and effective sanctions.
the Online safety act is a good example of a bad law, which is enforced badly. The first big test (X producing industrial quantities of minors engaging in sexual activity) was failed. Had a small company produced a service that did they same thing, they would have been fined, servers ceased and owners thrown in jail. X got a letter saying they should stop.
An example of good enforcement is the UK's scores on the doors, where the public can see what the standard is, and if they fall below a certain level, the food place is fined/shutdown/other until it improves.
Another good example is NCAP ratings.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8SO8KcfhJmc
Old school methods like what McDonald's use, literally allow the customer to see in to the kitchen are very effective.
Not always ideal for every type establishment but I've seen high end Indian restaurants even do it by having the POS at the back where you can see the kitchen when paying which keeps the noise separate for the desired quiet atmosphere of a fine dining restaurant
I'm not sure how to translate this to the smartphone market though. Fairphone and LaJolla seem to do well in this regard though so back to brand reputation for a lot of this.
I'm not here with a silver bullet or anything, but I'd say the EU's energy efficiency labeling works well and has a fairly low level of being gamed/falsified.
I don't think there's any big reason why the EU couldn't enforce labeling of a similar kind to IFixit's repair-ability scoring[0] for set devices.
On a separate note, the article mentions the lousy attempts some smart phone makers are guilty of with regards to repair instructions:
> Some records even refer customers to Temu or AliExpress for spare parts and repair instructions.
There are at least a lot less smart phone manufacturers than restaurants and cafes (comparing to scores on the doors) - if the EU really wanted to, it wouldn't be a huge resource to produce clear guidance on what expectations are for smart phone spare part provision, and issue fines whenever they're violated (you might think is a bad idea, and too much regulation, but my point is just that it's at least feasible)
[0] https://www.ifixit.com/repairability/smartphone-repairabilit...
Because the public generally does not care one iota about repairability. Phones are more robust these days than ever. A fatal flaw like a screen break occures on the order of years. People just assume that, if something bad does happen, the phone will be out of date and/or no longer getting updates anyway. Many also get thier phones as part of a service plan and so dont even view them as an expense.
Look at desktop PCs. Infinitely repairable. But 90% of people will just buy a new one the moment anything significant fails.
*Jolla, pronounced yolla. It's a Finnish word. Maybe a bad choice given the geography of tech.
Guess that's why the new refits have a giant wall to stop you seeing into the kitchen.
> I'm not sure how to translate this to the smartphone market though
Me neither, The pre-existing ways are independent lab testing ( euro-ncap for cars, or ifixit) or the "you have to pay for testing" like for large white goods. None of those work if they are not enforced though....
Ironically it's a very bad example: EuroNCAP is an independent organization and has nothing to do with the EU and legislation/regulations as such.
> Another good example is NCAP ratings.
Worth noting that NCAP and Scores on the Doors are not regulators. NCAP is an industry body; SotDs is run by TripAdvisor.
I'm not sure how the Scores on the Doors website, which is at least related to TripAdvisor, fits into all of this...
* Which you can at the website you listed.
I am unfamiliar with these matters and I am also unsure what specifically you are referring to.
But in general, if big companies get away with wrongdoings by receiving a gentle slap on their fingers, figuratively speaking, it will, in my opinion, lead to no change whatsoever.
Because if there are no material consequences for wrongdoings, they probably would not care. And there are very few kinds of actually material consequences for big companies. One of them being a really hefty fine.
In mono/oligo-poly situations there's no really such a thing as "a really hefty fine". Either the cost will be happily trickled to the very public that are being wronged or the fine is effectively unsurvivably hefty, which noone would levy against a too-big-to-fail entity.
Look at the recent fine for Meta for example. Settling a case against one of the core monopolic drivers for a couple percentage points of early revenue is peanuts. I can't believe the exec suite[-s] are thinking anything else than "which anti-consumer behavior can we buy indulgence for?", they would be stupid not to at these discounted rates.
I'm half joking here, but at this point it feels like the only reasonable way to instill some fear against building Torment Nexus and cyberpunk dystopia would be personal criminal liability of the boards and exec suites that is impossible to settle.
Frankly, I'd prefer it if we just let them howl and said fuck it more but it's probably a good job I'm not making those decisions (and in honesty the picture is complex for companies that size/the politics).
Not like it's the only issue in US/UK relations these days either.
That's the situation whether we like it or not.
privacy rights, standardization of cables, and monopoly busting are also pretty good things.
the real question is why americans havent pushed back against their new feudal lords to carve out the same rights they did against the old ones
Europeans by and large don't care about American companies these days. They use American software products because frequently there are no alternatives. And most of the news about them are negative.
Hint hint
South Korea is a very dynamic, tech heavy country and it hasn't managed to push any software product as a market leader.
The EU is bigger, but it's fractured, so functionally it's basically 2-3x South Korea in terms of "software power". And that's not enough to compete with the much larger US juggernaut. Only China has managed to hold its own by simply banning US software all together.
I'm actually all in favor of the EU banning all American software. Fairly sure that after a huge initial tumble a healthy EU software market would thrive.
Edit: I need to brace myself, the Americans are waking up :-)))
If the current EU mindset existed 150 years ago, they would have banned steam engines because they are too loud and annoying. That's the level of shortsighted immediate gratification we are dealing with.
I don't know what SK has to do with this, they are basically still close to an emerging economy. Europe had a roaring economy when SK was still mostly farming.
Not having a silicon valley is a good thing.
Delete the US and China and all Europe has left is 6 weeks vacation.
I really like history but nothing like this come to mind, I'd be happy to read about it, what exactly did they do/not do?
> Some records even refer customers to Temu or AliExpress for spare parts and repair instructions.
> But even for products that are technically compliant, the listed weblink still rarely offers a direct path to parts prices. For major brands such as Apple and Samsung, it can take some clicking around before you find what you need, Right to Repair says.
Source for this claim? How can you say regulation is good without even defining what the regulation is? Or do you just believe that all regulation no matter what is always good?
I am talking about weaponized trade relations, such as coupling embargoes or tariffs, to inner market fines. I am talking about explicitly threatening allies for enforcing their own legally sanctioned laws inside their sovereign territory. I am, in part, talking about threatening allies with invasion, if they don't do what you want.
President Trump has spent over 7 years trying, without any proof, that US state and federal elections are rigged when he or his allies do not win.
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politic...
The image literally says "inspired by Starship Troopers". Which was inspired by fascism and Nazi uniforms in particular.
> if you want to see a real fascist regime
Is it not worth looking at how such regimes got there? Maybe as a preventative? Do we have to wait for it to go all the way to Holocausts before we go "uh oh, should've said something"?
We had our https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beer_Hall_Putsch a few years back, even.
Yes, it's a great satire. You get problems when, as with The Boys' Homelander, people apparently can't figure out who the bad guys are.
> And what exactly does it change? Are you afraid that particular type of pants will make people Nazi or what?
I am afraid of people who are super into the Nazi aesthetic, yes, especially when they run the country I live in.
> The government get to many tools to influence every aspect of citizens' lives, and then uses those tools to get rid of all opposing voices. That is far more relevant to the Europe than to the US.
Have you been in a coma the last few years?
However for point one, the samples I saw were a picture of a minor posted by a minor in a normal situation. Someone would say @grok show me her in a bikini.
for point 2, this is not born out by the examples that I saw.
The bigger point here is that under UK law, there is little distinction between "real" and "fake". Any depiction of a minor engaged in sexual activities is illegal. This was to get round the "oh its photoshoped" defence. In the USA is different, but I have no experience on that point.
The only reason why I know is because a member of staff at a previous company was found to be using his workstation to store and distribute anime shit that depicted this stuff, and the company legal advice was "oh wow you are totally fucked." It was a huge faff to deal with and posed huge risks to everyone involved.
(Depending on your local jurisdiction. But GP said "Online Safety Act" so I'm making an assumption).
Minors were involved and people were generating sexually charged images ("donut glaze" etc). This is why other countries, like South Korea, also went after X under deepfake related regulations.
- Lack of resources
- Lack of real consumer impact
- Awaiting legislation meant to clarify or strengthen impact of enforcement.
The article to me doesn't offer enough to justify any shout of doing anything different at the moment, rather it's just that they failed an audit. If they failed an audit and coupled this to swaths of consumer complaints, sure, but every EU member has a clear agency for consumer complaint, and I don't buy it that it is hard for consumers to report violations, it is far more likely in this case that they just don't care for the violations this particular group cares more about (like the links to Temu. I suspect a consumer doesn't care if it actually works still in practice, but we'd need surveys to confirm).
Consumer-replaceable batteries will be one area that WILL be a hot issue for consumers, so I would bet we will see much stronger reaction once that rule comes into effect.
The problem is the response is toothless. I reported Amazon for a violation to ICO in February 2019, received an automated email a month later asking for a swathe of information, replied to that, and 3 months later got an update that it would be assigned a Case Officer. That was the last time I heard from them on that matter.
Meanwhile, my local council will respond to pretty much _everything_ within 24-48 hours. I’ve reported all sorts of “small” things and when it comes up naturally friends are surprised that the council did anything. They’ve never actually tried reporting the issues, and assume it’s all fruitless.
The company that looks like a medieval food shop with meat warming in the sun and a big sign that says "caveat emptor" and manned by a slave with very dirty hands. The fact that it still operates in the EU is prove that more tough punishments are needed for corporations that push fraud, dangerous products, abuse of monopolistic position, etc. Amazon in a nutshell.
What I expect from this is rather that at least a few producers get more repair friendly so I as consumer have the choice again. (Writing this on my first phone without easily changeable battery, I've tried for very long)
So I as my families tech guru can give the right signals to my family and in a few years we see the actual change happen. Slowly but steadily
The simple calculus is: will it cost me more to comply, or more to ignore? If a company chooses the more costly option, they are betraying their shareholders and being managed poorly.
If you do not fine early and often, you are almost mandating that companies ignore the legislation. If this continues for several years, then you almost make it impossible to turn around later and fine, as businesses will want to know what's changed now. You will create an impression of uncertainty and instability, which is the last thing businesses want, and the last thing you want to do to encourage investment.
If you just set and enforce the rules from the start, then everyone can relax, do the right thing and be happy about it. It's funny how rarely this actually seems to happen.
> will it cost me more to comply, or more to ignore?
Is an (unfortunately) American view of things. The vast majority of European businesses I’ve worked with attempt to comply with the _spirit_ of the laws, while my experience with most American companies is they try to skirt the letter of the law to do whatever the hell they want.
I’m not saying one is better, or that all companies in both places are like that. But it rings true in my experience.
I personally happily followed GDPR rules, so did many others. Making it generally a better place. That wasn't because of fines but because we now had a framework to follow to make the world a safer place.
If you can afford to keep fines in litigation/appeals/formal-defect limbo for a sufficient number of years, you can grow out of even once-threatening fines and delay compliance until the law that you finally bow down to is so old that its signs of old age will in the meantime become popular arguments for undermining or retracting it.
18% compliance after one year with zero enforcement is not great, but it's already a massive increase over the near-zero repairable products we had only a few years ago. On top of that it is 18% of models, so there's a decent chance that a huge chunk of the noncompliant ones are obscure brands with near-zero sales: a handful of models by Apple and Samsung already add up to over 60% market share. And the report was literally written by iFixit, so there's a rather clear commercial incentive to underrepresent it and push for the strongest enforcement possible.
Aside from FairPhone no one offers that
They are easy _enough_ to replace already. Is it as easy as 20 years ago? Surely not. It also seems reasonable that something you're going to be realistically doing once per 3-4 years would require 1 or 2 hours.
Moreover, the regulation doesn't affect this process, apart from "no proprietary tools".
> That’s the only part that will wear out within a reasonable lifecycle.
Millions of broken screens and back glass/plastic panels beg to differ.
The directive is far more complicated, and you will not see that at all.
This happens a lot, see Samsung and Apple announcing more years of security updates and feature updates, Apple announcing the switch to USB-C for the iPhone.
Once it's clear the EU will not budge, some big companies will just switch over in advance, other companies will lag.
Spare battery: ???
However when your battery is old, and drains fast, it's really nice to be able to order a new one and easily change it by removing 4 screws.
Not having to perform surgery on your phone, heating it to remove glue, etc.
That would be great, obviously there would be tradeoffs (not as thin, potentially less waterproof) but that seems like the right direction to go in.
If there is a market for spare batteries, there might be a market for external battery chargers as well > swap battery in the morning instead of charging, place empty battery on charger, repeat the next day
Several times I thought about purchasing a spare battery, but I never did. I also thought about detaching the battery and using the machine without it, such as on AC line power, or when I didn't need the extra juice. But I realized that it was a bad idea to carry it around with a gaping hole on the bottom and exposed battery contacts. I would've felt comfortable if there was a dummy cap to snap on instead.
However, what is needed desperately is the ability to quickly change a degraded battery.
Look at DSLR cameras: take out in 1 second, put in in 1 second, physically robust.
We absolutely can have the best of both worlds. We just need to align the smartphone manufacturers to user serviceability and right to repair… even if they go kicking and screaming since they decided their bottom line is most important.
My ThinkPad t420 had a small built in battery so I could switch batteries without shutdown. Imagine the magic. Imagine taking 20+ hours of laptop battery with you 15 years ago.
New definition of nightmare just dropped: changing a battery. Or is it simply handling a battery? I can't figure out what's supposed to be the nightmare.
Maybe it's the turning off of a telephone.
Both types of products from them were recalled after about a month for being fire hazards.
I imagine it's not universal but it really made me question the product category.
- new requirements
- ignored => small fine
- still ignored => large fine
- not ignored anymore
I wonder if it will just lead to using same size batteries more gently.
"back in the day" we had waterproof phones with user replacable batteries, you could just buy another battery and replace it yourself. I have no idea why we can't do this now.
> I have no idea why we can’t do this now
For better worse I think the answer is quite simple - a combo of ease of manufacturing, a long term trend of slimmer devices that is broadly supported by customer behaviour, and an extra place to suggest a device upgrade instead of a repair. You’re more than able to get pretty much any smartphone battery replaced with a manufacturer similar spec these days, and people still choose not to do so.
Having replaced the battery in my old phone, I sure understand why people don't "choose" to do so. The battery itself is worth maybe 20 bucks but the labour and tools required to replace it cost much, much more.
Compared to spending 30 bucks on a secondary battery back in the day, things sure have gone downhill since the days of user-replaceable batteries.
Ok byeeee
Power density and all of the problems that are fallout from high power density. A modern LiPoly battery contains a lot of energy. It's stored in a chemical that is highly reactive with oxygen, which you happen to be surrounded by at the moment.
Watch some videos on lithium battery fires. Not only do they have extremely hot flames but they spray out molten bits of battery and can't be extinguished with water.
To make a LiPoly battery that can be safely handled by normal people it needs a strong outer casing. A sealed battery in a phone uses the phone's case itself as the battery's protective casing. A user replaceable battery would need its own strong case. The phone then needs to be larger to accommodate the extra volume or have a smaller battery which stores less power than a sealed battery of equivalent volume.
The market has rewarded thinner phones with long lifetimes but also high performance. That triple point is challenging if not impossible to hit without sealed batteries.
Politicians have a tendency to think that passing legislation fixes problems, where is its only the start of the process.
Being in favour of the GDPR will bring out downvotes and FUD from the people whose very salaries are dependent on invading your privacy.
Somethings are big more challenging like getting the data for customer when asking or deleting it when reasonable. But as user I also like at least having that option. It is least any business can do.
The problem is that it applies to small organisations, even non-profits, that do not trade that information which is proportionately a much bigger burden. Real examples of organisations I have come across who have to comply with GDPR include a local community theatre, a parish church etc. They are keep fairly simple information, and not exchanging it with anyone, but they still have to put effort into ensuring compliance. They are pretty good and ethical anyway - the theatre recently impressed me when I found out that if you give them medical information in case of emergency they put it in a sealed envelope and no one opens it unless there is an actually emergency that requires it (i.e. you keel over there!).
Eh?
Collect only the personal data you need (with permission) and keep it secure. Such a basic responsibility to your members privacy and safety is hardly a burden.
Yeah, and that is precisely where you want something like the GDPR to be as well!
Large corporations are one thing, they have compliance departments, but so, so many local organizations have gotten hacked or data exfiltrated because "why do software and hardware updates when everything is working" or due to incompetence ("cc all"). GDPR finally gave the younger crowd some leverage to get the old guard to do things at least somewhat decently.
What does each one of your systems store exactly? Do they allow configuration of reasonable data retention policies for PII? What do your systems log? How do you make sure that only the minimum amount of PII (including user IP addresses) is logged and that the covered logs are destroyed at the end of a reasonable retention period?
How do you handle Data Subject Access Requests? Can you compile all the data related to that person in a reasonable time to send it to them?
How do you handle deletion requests? Can you name all the data storage that is affected if a deletion request comes in? Are your systems technically capable of deleting the data? What data is exempt (e.g. billing addresses can't just be deleted before the mandated archival period is over)? Do you maintain backups? Then how do you make sure that data covered by a deletion request is destroyed and stays gone even in the event of a backup recovery?
Nobody who wants to bootstrap a business wants to deal with any of this. It's an enormous time sink.
I doubt anybody wants to deal with fire safety inspections either.
Though I'm quite sure you will change your mind when your personal data gets hacked or your office burns down.
Fire safety is less onerous and less complex.
If there is one thing that is incredibly complex, it is fire codes - in no small part because these vary from town to town, or to be more precise, the height of their portable ladder trucks. Once you build higher than these, you have to plan for a second escape route.
That's not that bad of a thing if you work exclusively in one area... but good luck if you operate across the nation or, worse, internationally because everyone does things a liiiitle bit differently.
Indeed but it forces you to answer these questions and to think about them during the development process as well, maybe even enough to write decent unit and regression tests for anything authentication/authorization related before some security "researcher" siccs Claude Code or whatever on your API and pwns it.
That's a very narrow perspective. The vast majority of businesses aren't this. Even a plumber who types up offers and invoices on a computer is subject to all of this mess.
Yeah and that plumber has 1000s of customer names, addresses, phone numbers, mail addresses, in Europe maybe even SEPA Direct Debit data.
Not funny if that kind of stuff leaks, especially not if you're, say, a person with a public register block due to domestic violence or whatever (basically, one step before witness protection that gives you a whole new identity).
If your primary focus as an electrician, plumber or other tradesperson is SME or industry, of course, then there is far less customers.
At least here in Germany, in most rental contracts the responsibilities are split between landlord and renter, with the landlord being responsible for the heating, the water mains and the large fusebox, but the renter has to deal with everything under the scope of "Kleinreparatur". Exchanging faucets and siphons, wall sockets, installing laundry machines and other appliances, installing lamps, that kind of stuff many people (like me) can DIY but other people (like a lot of my friends) can't or don't want to, and they call in the professionals for an hour or two. And these guys have like 4-6 service calls a day.
Now the EU is already quite challenged to stand up against US, China (and Korea) when it comes to enforcing such regulation and dealing with accusations from US/China/Korea of "sanctioning sales of their products"...
...so how would one expect the government of an individual country to fare in this, in times of Russia/Ukraine war, energy crisis, Strait-of-Hormuz-crisis...?
I’m not interested in fixing the device myself. I’m taking it back to the company Apple, Sony, Nvidia or Audio-Engine and have them fix it, a third-party chop shop or me involved trying to fix it myself is unacceptable.
Most of the items sold today-simply cost too much to try a tinker with it myself. That’s utterly ridiculous. I hope the EU or any country for that matter concentrate on making sure companies with strong laws, honor/standby and fix the problem with their product. I have little faith that they will.
The EU is just extremely worried about US tariffs and retracting support to Ukraine.
IMO they should just bite the bullet and do what they need to do. In a world of bullies those that are willing to show their teeth win. But instead we have a lot of politicians without a spine.
That’s easy to calculate with, and almost certainly cheaper than compliance.
Maybe non EU people shouldn't judge this much? Its generally Very welcomed around here