This just shows how low a company can sink ethically after the owners are gone.
Admittedly, I had read about the expiring ink cartridges some years ago.
This behaviour is what I expect now from HP. And this is one of the reasons we
no longer use HP printers, or much of anything else from HP. They poisoned the
well as far as I am concerned when they did away with the HP3000.
This also points out why one should never update firmware unless you have a
manifest problem that the update fixes. It also demonstrates why auto updating
is dangerous. You cannot get back from a bad update. And you cannot recover
features the OEM decides to disable.
--->
From this morning's Guardian (2023-05-10):
https://www.theguardian.com/money/2023/may/10/how-can-hp-block-me-from-using-a-cheaper-printer-cartridge
Q.
"I bought my usual recycled toner cartridge for my HP LaserJet printer. When I
installed it I got a message telling me that printing was blocked as it was not
an HP cartridge. It turns out that, in the last few weeks, HP has updated the
printer firmware (without asking) to stop the use of non-HP cartridges. This
means I will have to pay an extra 30% for my toner cartridges. What’s going
on?"
A.
I think I can answer that in a single word: profiteering. That’s not how HP
describes it. Altruism is the excuse it prefers. It tells me the practice it
calls “dynamic security” is “to enhance the overall printing experience for our
customers”.
Banning cartridges made by any other manufacturer increases printing quality
and security protection, it claims. An alternative is confessed on its customer
support page, where it states: “The purpose of dynamic security feature is to
protect HP’s innovations and intellectual property.”
Dynamic security has been introducing restrictions to cartridges, unbeknownst
to printer owners, during firmware updates since 2016. Users, who have relied
for years on cheaper brands of ink, are now forced to ditch them, used or
unused, and pay a premium for HP’s own. The ramifications of this kind of
protectionism are significant. It’s like disabling an electric toothbrush if a
customer doesn’t use Colgate.
It seems to get worse. GOS of Boothby Pagnall, Lincolnshire, reports that his
HP printer is suddenly rejecting HP cartridges that are deemed out of date. “I
never even realised there was such a thing as a ‘best before’ date on inks,” he
writes. “I’m sure I am not the only one who bulk buys, only to have them expire
before they are used. One I replaced yesterday cost £45.”
The extraordinary thing is that HP has recently and quietly expanded the
practice months after agreeing an out-of-court €1.35m compensation package for
customers in four European countries who were left out of pocket after their
cartridges were blocked without warning.
In 2020, it paid $1.5m after US customers brought a class action lawsuit
claiming it had abused its security update system to disadvantage them. Also in
2020, the Italian Competition and Markets Authority fined it €10m for
introducing the restrictions without telling customers.
HP declared the settlements did not suggest an admission of wrongdoing. Far
from it. Buried deep within its website is the warning that any printer could
stop accepting non-HP cartridges at any time.
<---
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