[Themaintainers] Request for Data for FTC's Nixing the Fix: A Workshop on Repair Restrictions

[lee vinsel]

Hey, everybody.

As some of you may have seen, the Federal Trade Commission is holding a
workshop on repair restrictions titled "Nixing the Fix
<https://www.ftc.gov/news-events/events-calendar/nixing-fix-workshop-repair-restrictions>."
The FTC has articulated a series of questions related to this topic, which
I've copied below, but may not even know what it is looking for.

The good folks over at iFixit - which calls itself "a global community of
people helping each other repair things" and has been an important force in
the right-to-repair movement - have been leading the charge to pull data
together.

I wanted to write to see if anyone has existing data that might help. (To
give one example, perhaps you've run some repair cafes and have kept data
on the kinds of repairs individuals are seeking.) But this also seems like
a germane moment to brainstorm some collective research efforts that might
shed light on repair, corporate repair restrictions, and related topics.

Please feel free to reply to the list with any thoughts, questions, ideas,
etc. If you'd like to reach out to iFixit directly, you can drop a
line to Brittany
McCrigler, iFixit's Director of Education Services: brittany at ifixit.com

Best,

Lee

*Nixing the Fix: A Workshop on Repair Restrictions* will focus on how
manufacturers may limit repairs by consumers and repair shops and whether
those limitations affect consumer protection, including consumers’ rights
under the Magnuson-Moss Warranty Act. The workshop will discuss some of the
issues that arise when a manufacturer restricts or makes it impossible for
a consumer or an independent repair shop to make product repairs and
whether such restrictions undercut the Warranty Act’s protections.

Questions from the FTC:

The prevalence of the certain types of repair restrictions

The effect of repair restrictions on the repair market in the United
States, and the impact that manufacturers’ repair restrictions have on
small and local businesses

The effect repair restrictions have on prices for repairing goods,
accessibility and timeliness of repairs, and the quality of repair

The effect of repair restrictions on consumers’ ability to repair
warrantied products or to have the products repaired by independent repair
shops

The relationship between repair restrictions and the sale of extended
warranties by manufacturers

Manufacturers’ justifications for repair restrictions and the factual basis
for such justifications

The risks posed by repairs made by consumers or independent repair shops

The liability faced by manufacturers when consumers or independent repair
workers are injured while repairing a product

The liability faced by manufacturers when consumers are injured after using
or coming into contact with a product that has been repaired improperly by
a consumer or independent repair shop

Whether consumers understand the existence and the effects of repair
restrictions


-- 
Co-Founder
The Maintainers
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