REPORT Towards a more sustainable single market for business and consumers

The vote calls for the EU Commission to “develop and introduce mandatory labelling, to provide clear, immediately visible and easy-to-understand information to consumers on the estimated lifetime and reparability of a product at the time of purchase.”This won’t change anything immediately—it’s a call for the government to work on setting up these initiatives—but it is a major vote of confidence in us and a huge step forward. It sets the stage nicely for implementation of the French labeling system and US state Right to Repair bills in January.Credit for this goes to our allies across #Europe. French MEP David Cormand is a real hero of the revolution!

Fixing for Change: Repair and Activism

We worked on this for over a month featuring 4 Literary Heroes of Repair.

EU Parliament Votes in favor of More Repair

Great news for Right to Repair out of Europe last week .   The EU Parliament voted to require OEMS to officially disclose the repairability and durability of products to the public. 

Details available at this link: https://www.europarl.europa.eu/news/en/press-room/20201120IPR92118/

This is great - and badly needed. Its actually an extension of work already being done in France requiring OEMs doing business in France to fill out a repairability scorecard which will allow such comparisons.  This vote effectively makes repairability comparisons a policy goal for the entirety of the EU. 

Despite our excitement, this vote is not Right to Repair.  Armed with the information that a product is suitable repairable, if the consumer cannot get the item repaired that information is worthless.  Much remains to be done. 

We view the vote as a gigantic warning to manufacturers that their repair monopolies are coming to an end. We are hopeful that once a few OEMS start marketing their commitment to repairability -- savvy competitors will follow suit.  Legislation is still needed to make sure that repair monopolies are permanently prohibited. 

Google's excuses are "wearing thin," repair advocate call for lifting repair ad ban

Repair.org has presented Google with a petition of over 6900 individuals asking that Google restore the opportunity for repair shops to buy advertising on Google in a joint campaign action with U.S. PIRG. 

The ban on adverts has been in place for nearly a year and has dramatically impacted the ability of repair, refurb and even advocacy groups such as ourselves to tell consumers about their services. 

The excuse that they needed to protect consumers from charlatans and cheaters has worn thin. Google has figured out how to differentiate between legitimate providers and charlatans in nearly all other service businesses but has failed to apply their skills to electronics repair.  

Given how critical Google search advertising is, we can only assume that they prefer to stifle the legitimate business of independent repair in support of their own financial interests. We provided the full petition to members of the House Subcommittee on Antitrust and to the FTC. 

Google’s heartless ban on repair ads has already sent some repair shops under. In the middle of a pandemic, when foot traffic is almost nil, how are you supposed to reach customers?