Companies may soon tell you when their products die
The proposed law will require companies to detect a “reasonable” time frame on the product packaging and online where it is sold, allowing users to know the time when the device can expect access to these connected features. Companies will also be required to notify clients when their devices approach the end of the support of support, and inform them of the features that will disappear.
Finally, there is a cybersecurity angle, which requires Internet service providers to remove and exchange the wide range of routers provided by the company from consumer homes when they reach the end of their lives.
“The cybersecurity article is really wandering on the condition that Internet service providers who rent or sell smart connected devices for their customers are responsible for managing the end of life devices on their networks,” says Paul Roberts, president of the future Future Foundation in the future.
If the thing about the router feels a little bit outside the left field, then this is because Roberts says it is a deliberate approach with two parts. “These two issues are somewhat distinct, but they are all part of the biggest problem,” Roberts says, which puts some handrails and definition about this smart device market. Taking to manufacturers, there are rules that you need to adhere to if you want to sell a connected smart product. It is not the wild West. “
Roberts hopes that if the law gets support from legislators, and it is ultimately converted into real legislation, it will create market incentives for companies looking to make safer software products, similar to how to accept safety belts and airbags widely in cars.
However, it is less clear whether this legislation will obtain any traction at the federal level in the United States in a political climate dominated by the abolition of the imposed restrictions. While the European Union has led the road to the organization on the ability to repair products, the treatment at the end of the age of vehicles Electronic waste recyclingThe United States did not make similar movements.
“We are in a place where FTC and the Financial Consumer Protection Office are actually doing anything consumed,” says Anshel Sag, the main analyst at Moor Insights and strategies. “I don’t see any real appetite for the organization.”
SAG also feels that there is a possibility that such legislation has the ability to reduce thirst for innovation that drives startups. If companies know that they have to support a product for a specific period of time, it may limit this type of risk they want to tolerate.
“I don’t necessarily think this is bad,” said Sash. “I only think there are many startups that do not want to bear this danger. I think, because of this, innovation can hinder some aspects.”
Highginbotham is less worried about this. It dates back to its wide range of dead devices-which has reached a real pile of electronic waste.
“I don’t know if this is really considered innovation,” says HighGinbotham. “We need to re -calibrate our default preparation based on the past and semi -experience. You may not just throw a set of things in the ether and know what the sticks are.”