The FTC is trying to find out if John Deere’s repair policies broke the law

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The bureau is trying to fig retired if John Deere’s practices interruption the law.

By Lauren Feiner, a elder argumentation newsman astatine The Verge, covering the intersection of Silicon Valley and Capitol Hill. She spent 5 years covering tech argumentation astatine CNBC, penning astir antitrust, privacy, and contented moderation reform.

Oct 18, 2024, 5:52 PM UTC

The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) is probing whether John Deere utilized unfair practices related to the repair of its cultivation instrumentality that mightiness interruption the FTC Act.

The probe into John Deere’s restrictions connected customers’ close to repair cultivation instrumentality was revealed by information analytics institution Hargrove & Associates, Inc. (HAI), arsenic it fights a subpoena-like civilian investigative request (CID) from the FTC to manus implicit income data. As reported earlier by Reuters, the institution fears sharing the accusation the FTC seeks astir cultivation instrumentality income could harm its concern relationships.

The stated intent of the FTC’s CID is “[t]o find whether Deere & Company, oregon immoderate different person, has engaged successful oregon is engaging successful unfair, deceptive, anticompetitive, collusive, coercive, predatory, exploitative, oregon exclusionary acts oregon practices successful oregon affecting commerce related to the repair of cultivation instrumentality successful usurpation of Section 5 of the Federal Trade Commission Act.”

Screenshot: Hargrove & Associates, Inc.’s Petition to Quash oregon Limit Civil Investigative Demand (FTC)

“We are cooperating with the FTC, astatine this clip we cannot remark immoderate further portion an probe is ongoing,” John Deere spokesperson Jen Hartmann said successful a statement.

Recently, Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) warned John Deere that it could beryllium violating the Clean Air Act by excluding accusation successful their manuals astir farmers’ close to take a repair store from which to question enactment connected their equipment’s emanation power devices.

John Deere has been one of the main targets of the right-to-repair movement (along with Apple), which seeks to springiness customers much options to repair instrumentality with third-party services to grow entree and little costs. But companies that person resisted afloat opening their ecosystem thin to mention issues with security, which is simply a connection John Deere CTO Jahmy Hindman echoed during his 2021 quality connected the Decoder podcast. He argued, “Do you truly privation a tractor going down the roadworthy with bundle connected it that has been modified for steering oregon modified for braking successful immoderate mode that mightiness person a effect that cipher thought of?”

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