Right to repair is a pet cause for me. Across industries, from consumer electronics, to heavy equipment and even McDonald’s ice-cream makers companies actively preventing consumers from repairing devices makes the world worse. The e-waste takes an enormous toll on the environment, to say nothing of the cost on our wallets. Companies have long argued against right to repair citing concerns of safety and security. Those concerns are almost entirely unfounded and on Tuesday the FTC explained this to a California State Senate committee. “Testifying on behalf of the Commission, Dan Salsburg, Chief Counsel for Development and Innovation in the FTC’s Bureau of Consumer Protection, addressed two of the justifications for repair restrictions. First, in the FTC’s 2021 Nixing the Fix report to Congress, the FTC found scant evidence that repair restrictions are necessary to protect repair workers and consumers from injuries that could result from improperly fixing a product or using an improperly repaired product. Second, the Nixing the Fix report found no empirical evidence to suggest that independent repair shops are more or less likely than authorized repair shops to compromise or misuse customer data or that providing them access to diagnostics and firmware patches would introduce cybersecurity risks.” reads part of an April 11th press release from the FTC. FTC Testifies Before California State Senate on Right to RepairApril, 11, 2023, ftc.gov The post FTC Testifies Talks Right To Repair Before The California State Senate appeared first on Mason Pelt.FTC Testifies Talks Right To Repair Before The California State Senate