HP Hit With Yet Another Lawsuit Over Bricking Printers That Use Third-Party Ink Cartridges

Hewlett Packard (HP) has been socked with yet another lawsuit for crippling the printers of consumers who use cheaper third-party ink cartridges. The lawsuit, filed by eleven plaintiffs in US District Court in the Northern District of Illinois, states that HP misleadingly used its “Dynamic Security” firmware updates to “create a monopoly” over replacement printer ink cartridges.

The lawsuit seeks monetary damages of $5 million, demands that HP immediately cease crippling its printers in such a fashion, and is seeking a trial by jury. From the lawsuit:

“In 2022 and 2023, HP distributed updates to many of its registered customers that
featured the functionality of “Dynamic Security” previously discontinued: it disabled the printer if the customer replaced the existing cartridge with a non-HP cartridge. There was no notification of any kind at the time of this firmware update that might inform customers that the update would reduce the printer’s functionality. Even if a customer were able to discern that the update would impede the printer’s functionality with other cartridges, there was no means of opting out of the update.”

Despite years of criticism, HP has only doubled down. As Ars Technica notes, CFO Marie Myers has even lauded the obnoxious, predatory behavior as “relationship building”:

“We absolutely see when you move a customer from that pure transactional model … whether it’s [to] Instant Ink, plus adding on that paper, we sort of see a 20 percent uplift on the value of that customer because you’re locking that person, committing to a longer-term relationship.”

When it comes to obnoxious DRM and bizarre, greedy restrictions, nobody does it better than printer manufacturers. The industry has long waged a not-so-subtle war on its own customers, routinely rolling out firmware updates or DRM preventing them from using more affordable, competitor printer cartridges. Usually under the flimsy pretense of consumer safety and security.

A few years ago, printer manufacturers took this tactic one step further, and began preventing users from being able to use a multifunction printer’s scanner if they didn’t have company sanctioned ink installed. Canon was hit with a $5 million lawsuit in 2021 for the practice, but was able to quietly settle it privately without facing much accountability, or having to change much of its behavior.

In 2022 HP was also hit with a lawsuit (pdf) for preventing scanners from working without sanctioned ink cartridges installed, and not being transparent about this with customers. HP has spent a few years trying to wiggle out of the suit, but hasn’t had much luck. Last August, U.S. District Judge Beth Labson Freeman ruled that that case could also proceed.

It’s not clear how many lawsuits and regulatory actions are required before HP gets the message that this kind of behavior is violently unpopular bullshit that harms the company’s overall brand at the cost of a slight goose in quarterly earnings.