US President Biden cracks down on tech companies that obstruct third-party repairs

US President Joe Biden instructs the FTC to write new rules to address repair restrictions that tech companies impose on third parties. He believes that consumers should be able to decide for themselves who repairs their devices.

The order to the Federal Trade Commission is part of a broader executive order in which the US president writes pro-competitive guidelines. The FTC must, among other things, establish stricter rules for tech manufacturers and other companies that impose restrictions on independent repair shops and DIY repairers.

The executive order states that smartphone makers, among others, “impose restrictions on self-repair or third-party repair”. [van apparaten], making repairs more expensive and time-consuming.” Among other things, limiting the distribution of new parts, diagnostics aids and tools would impede fair competition.

With his assignment, Biden underlines the importance of the right for consumers to decide for themselves about the repair of products. The FTC has been working on this for some time now. In early May, the watchdog wrote another critical report for the US Congress. In it, the committee concludes that tech companies make it unnecessarily difficult for consumers to repair something themselves or not.

Recently, there has been a lot of talk about the right to repair products themselves among consumers and legislators, often fueled by the Right to Repair movement. For example, at the end of 2020, the European Parliament approved new rules regarding the reparability of products. Since February of this year, the French government is one of the first countries in Europe to require Apple, among others, to show the reparability in the form of a score on the site. It is not yet known when the upcoming FTC rules will be implemented in practice.