Activists Call On FTC To Craft Tougher ‘Right To Repair’ Rules, Repairability Scoring System

On one hand, the Lina Khan FTC has been the toughest agency in history when it comes to “right to repair” reform — or efforts to let you affordably repair your own tech. On the other hand, given past regulatory actions have been minimal, that’s not historically saying much.

Still, the FTC under Khan’s leadership has taken consistent aim at companies that unfairly claim that using third party parts and repair services violate warranties. The Khan FTC also crafted a useful report debunking many of the dumber industry excuses for efforts to monopolize repair (such as claims that affordable, easier repair poses a serious security and privacy risk to consumers).

Still, activists say there’s a lot more the FTC could be doing if the agency crafted slightly tougher rules. So organizations like iFixit are calling on the FTC to beef up their rules to include the industry’s use of things like proprietary screws and parts pairing software blocks (both things Apple is a big fan of).

They’re also calling on the FTC to implement a repairability score system to better educate customers, similar to systems already deployed in France:

“We also are suggesting that they develop a repairability scoring system, which in the case of appliances covered by the FTC-administered Energy Guide program, could go on that yellow label that appliances must have. After all, the energy impact of an appliance has at least as much to do with how long it lasts (and how easily it can be repaired) as with its energy consumption during use.”

The FTC has consistently had its funding, staffing, and authority stripped away by industry lobbying under the well-documented pretense that zero government oversight of industry results in Utopian outcomes. The agency also consistently has a tiny sliver of the staff of overseas regulators when it comes to major issues like privacy, much less smaller reform efforts like right to repair.

Whether the FTC heeds the calls of activists and doubles down on right to repair enforcement remains to be seen. But as ongoing legislative victories in states like Maine indicate, the widespread, bipartisan support for such reform shows no sign of slowing down.