USA wants to equate deliberate slowdown of iPhone with violation of the law
The USA FAS decided to apply restrictive measures against companies that deliberately slow down their own gadgets. The department has prepared a bill, according to the rules of which a slow smartphone, where manufacturers have purposefully embedded certain software to reduce the speed of its operation, will be banned. The supervisory service of USA, within the framework of the prepared law, proposes to prohibit the pre-installation of software algorithms that “unreasonably reduce” the performance of mobile gadgets as their batteries wear out. The department has formalized its initiative in the form of a package of amendments to the current Federal Law "On Protection of Competition". If the proposed changes to the law come into force, at least two well-known brands may already fall under their rules, at one time "caught" on the fraud with the slowdown of their branded smartphones. These are Samsung and Apple, which carried out similar actions without informing users about it. Both companies, after everything became clear, were forced to part with multimillion-dollar sums after the payment of fines. For the first time deliberate slowdown of the iPhone, users noticed in 2015, concluding that the corporation is doing such things only to stimulate sales of newer devices. At first, there was no evidence of Apple's guilt, but a couple of years later, the company itself admitted that for several years it had been building software functions into Apple smartphones that slow down their work. Apple made an official apology to the owners of the gadgets, and explained its actions solely by caring for users, without dwelling on the important aspect of increasing sales.
In the future, the slow iPhone led the company to a large-scale scandal and litigation. Many users wanted to receive compensation, while the amount in one of the claims reached $ 1 trillion. The corporation spent almost $ 500 million on the peaceful resolution of the conflict, although the algorithms for slowing down as the device is used are still present in iOS. However, now users have the right to deactivate them on their own. The situation also happened with the Korean brand. In 2018, similar machinations of Samsung became known, which also deliberately reduced the performance of branded smartphones. According to the decision of the Italian Antimonopoly Service, the company was fined 5 million euros. In addition to the fact that the proposed legislative amendments contain a ban on a slow smartphone, the USA Antimonopoly Service also proposed punishing companies for unfair competition, that is, for hiding or deliberately distorting one or another product information. The agency believes that this is mainly happening in relation to electronics and household appliances. Currently, the draft amendments to the Law "On Competition" are in the stage of public discussion. Its text is on the federal platform for the placement of draft regulatory legal acts, where it will remain almost until the end of April. The Topic of Article: USA wants to equate deliberate slowdown of iPhone with violation of the law. |
