New Right To Repair Bill Targets Obnoxious Auto Industry Behavior

from the do-not-pass-go,-do-not-collect-$200 dept

It's just no fun being a giant company aspiring to monopolize repair to boost revenues. On both the state and federal level, a flood of new bills are targeting companies' efforts to monopolize repair by implementing obnoxious DRM, making repair tools and manuals hard to find, bullying independent repair shops (like Apple does), or forcing tractor owners to drive hundreds of miles just to get their tractor repaired (one of John Deere's favorite pastimes). The Biden administration even just got done signing an executive order asking the FTC to tighten up its restrictions on the subject.

This week the list of right to repair legislation jumped by one with the introduction of the "Right to Equitable and Professional Auto Industry Repair" Act (REPAIR Act), which would mandate equitable access to repair tools and tech, boost the FTC's authority to handle consumer complaints, and mandate additional transparency by the auto industry:

"Americans should not be forced to bring their cars to more costly and inconvenient dealerships for repairs when independent auto-repair shops are often cheaper and far more accessible,” said Rep. Rush. “But as cars become more advanced, manufacturers are getting sole access to important vehicle data while independent repair shops are increasingly locked out. The status quo for auto repair is not tenable, and it is getting worse. If the monopoly on vehicle repair data continues, it would affect nearly 860,000 blue-collar workers and 274,000 service facilities."

The auto industry has been particularly obnoxious when it comes to providing independent access to data, tools, and repair manuals for cars with increasingly complicated internal electronics. That's a particular problem when an estimated 70 percent of U.S. cars are serviced by independent repair shops. The industry has also been obnoxious in their attempts to scuttle legislation attempting to address the problem, including running ads in Massachusetts that claimed an expansion of that state's right to repair legislation would only be of benefit to stalkers and sexual predators.

The problem for companies looking to monopolize repair is several fold. One, the harder they try to lock their technologies down, the greater the opposition grows. And that opposition tends to be both broad and bipartisan, ranging from the most fervent of urban Apple fanboys, to the most rural of John Deere tractor owners. This isn't a battle they're likely to win, and while we haven't seen federal legislation on this front passed yet, if the industries continue to push their luck in this space it's only a matter of time.

Filed Under: auto industry, repair act, right to repair

Auto Industry Pushes Bullshit Claim That 'Right To Repair' Laws Aid Sexual Predators

from the fear-mongering-ahoy dept

A few years back, frustration at John Deere's draconian tractor DRM culminated in a grassroots tech movement dubbed "right to repair." The company's crackdown on "unauthorized repairs" turned countless ordinary citizens into technology policy activists, after DRM (and the company's EULA) prohibited the lion's share of repair or modification of tractors customers thought they owned. These restrictions only worked to drive up costs for owners, who faced either paying significantly more money for "authorized" repair, or toying around with pirated firmware just to ensure the products they owned actually worked.

Of course the problem isn't just restricted to John Deere. Apple, Microsoft, Sony, and countless other tech giants eager to monopolize repair have made a habit of suing and bullying independent repair shops and demonizing consumers who simply want to reduce waste and repair devices they own. This, in turn, has resulted in a growing push for right to repair legislation in countless states.

To thwart these bills, companies have been ramping up the use of idiotic, fear mongering arguments. Usually these arguments involve false claims that these bills will somehow imperil consumer privacy, safety, and security. Apple, for example, tried to thwart one such bill in Nebraska by claiming it would turn the state into a "mecca for hackers."

While there's been no shortage of bad faith arguments like this, the auto industry in Massachusetts has taken things to the next level. The state is contemplating the expansion of an existing state law that lets users get their vehicles repaired anywhere they'd like. In a bid to kill these efforts, the Alliance for Automotive Innovation, which represents most major automakers, has taken to running ads in the state falsely claiming that the legislation would aid sexual predators:

The primary message of the ads is that if we allow people to more easily repair their vehicles, data from said vehicles will somehow find itself in the hands of rapists, stalkers, and other menaces. Granted actual experts have made it abundantly clear that this is utterly unfounded. The existing law requires that automakers use a non-proprietary diagnostic interface so any repair shop can access vehicle data using an ordinary OBD reader. It also makes sure that important repair information is openly accessible. The update to said law simply attempts to close a few loopholes in the existing law:

"Question 1 seeks to close a loophole in that earlier law, which exempted cars that transmitted this data wirelessly. As cars become even more computerized, independent repair shops are worried that manufacturers will do away with the OBD port and will store this data wirelessly, exempting them from the earlier law. The new initiative simply guarantees that car owners and independent repair companies can access this data wirelessly without "authorization by the manufacturer," and requires car manufacturers to store this data in a secure, "standardized, open-access platform."

One local ABC affiliate in Massachusetts thoroughly debunked the ads' claims. Experts told Matthew Gault at Motherboard that the real goal of the auto industry here is to simply shift all of this diagnostic tech to wireless to wiggle around the law. In part to maintain a monopoly on repair (letting them drive up the cost of taking your vehicle to the dealership), but also to further obscure all the driving, location, and other data automakers are collecting and selling to a long list of companies:

"My guess is what automakers really don't want to talk about is all of the data that they are collecting from connected vehicles that they're not telling us about,” Paul F Roberts, founder of Securerepairs—a group of security and repair professionals who advocate for security and repair issues—told Motherboard on the phone.

“The backup safety cameras that go on every time you put your car in reverse, are those on all the time and are they observing your surroundings and inferring data about your whereabouts and preferences?” Roberts said. “The in-cabin cameras that we know Tesla has on their cars, are those just monitoring you all the time… are they monitoring your GPS data and mining that or selling that? We don’t know."

Of course they're collecting and selling that data with minimal oversight. The United States still lacks any meaningful privacy laws for the modern era, in part because many of these same companies have opposed such legislation. Because it's hard for the auto industry to honestly admit it wants to monopolize repair, drive up consumer costs, and obfuscate the wholesale hoovering up and sale of your data, they've apparently concocted a grotesque bullshit narrative that the legislative updates will somehow aid sexual predators. Stay classy, Alliance for Automotive Innovation!

Filed Under: auto industry, cards, drm, freedom to tinker, independent repair shops, massachusetts, predators, right to repair
Companies: alliance for automotive innovation