FC: Motorola scheme uses GPS to disable grey-market imports

[Declan McCullagh <declan () well com>]

[Forwarded from IP. It seems to me that not only is this scheme a bad idea 
in this particular area, but it is a bad idea in general. I assembled my 
Canon EOS camera system from mostly grey-market parts, bought legally from 
B&H in NYC, a large and very reputable retailer. I've found grey-market 
parts to be about 10-15 percent cheaper and identical quality. The general 
case, it strikes me without thinking about this overmuch, is that grey 
market imports encourage arbitrage and price competition. Of course 
Motorola should have the right to do this -- but we don't have to do 
anything to encourage 'em, and we should have the right to try to disable 
their GPS receivers. :) --Declan]

********

> Date: Tue, 27 Feb 2001 11:41:01 -0800 (PST)
> From: Stanton McCandlish <mech () eff org>
>
> This is beyond amazing.  It's an anti-parallel import scheme that raises a
> lot of the same issues as all this DRM business, plus a slew of privacy
> concerns.  You may be saying goodbye to your imported European region-free
> DVD player, your Japanese SDMI-free MP3 player, etc., real soon now.
>
> http://www.newscientist.com/dailynews/news.jsp?id=ns9999452
>
> Motorola wants to pork your consumer rights, because "[i]t is often
> desirable to control the marketing or use of products differently in
> different areas".
>
> I'm apoplectic at the sheer chutzpah.
>
> --
> Stanton McCandlish      mech () eff org       http://www.eff.org/~mech
> Online Communications Director, Electronic Frontier Foundation
> voice: +1 415 436 9333 x105    fax: +1 415 436 9333
> PGPfone: 204.253.162.21





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