HP continues to pay for the sudden blocking of third-party inks on its printers

HP continues to pay for the sudden blocking of third-party ink in its printers. The company has agreed to compensate additional customers affected by the use of HP DRM to prevent third-party ink and toner from working in its printers. The settlement involving clients in Belgium, Italy, Spain and Portugal comes after the company has already agreed to a US settlement and has been fined in Italy.

HP printer owners were annoyed, to say the least, that in 2016 HP introduced Dynamic Security, a firmware update that prevented non-HP chip ink and toner cartridges from working in HP printers. Customers who already had these printers suddenly encountered error messages that prevented them from printing with fully functional cartridges. HP claimed at the time that the move was intended to help customers avoid counterfeits and low-quality inks, and to protect HP’s intellectual property. However, to a large extent it appeared to be a business tactic to protect one of HP’s biggest profit makers at the time, which was tied to a declining industry.

As reported by Bleeping Computer on Monday , European consumer group Euroconsumers announced on September 7 that it has entered into an agreement with HP that will provide financial compensation to customers living in the aforementioned regions. According to a statement by Euroconsumers, HP has agreed to provide $1,350,000 (approximately €1,351,147) to “compensate certain HP printer owners for losses allegedly incurred because they did not know their printers were equipped with Dynamic Security.”Individuals can get from 20 to 95 euros depending on the printer model and the consequences.

Euroconsumers noted that while it argued that “consumers have not been properly informed that Dynamic Security will force printers to reject certain third-party replacement cartridges”, the settlement is not “an admission of any error or wrongdoing on HP’s part, or an acknowledgment by HP. European consumers about the groundlessness of his claims.

That’s not to say that HP didn’t get in bad shape by suddenly stripping its customers of choice. And this is not the first time that you have to pay for it. In addition to bad publicity, HP reportedly agreed to pay $1.5 million to US customers for relocation and about A$50 to each Australian customer, and in 2020 the Italian Competition Authority fined HP €10,000,000 for “misleading and aggressive commercial practices.”

Unfortunately, this may be all HP has to pay, as the use of DRM to prevent ink and toner from being sold to third parties has become a common practice in the printing industry. When HP faced initial backlash against the introduction of Dynamic Security, it backtracked on firmware updates that removed Dynamic Security from some printers, Bleeping Computer notes. But newer printers still have this feature. HP simply puts the Dynamic Security font in small print and places it at the top of the printer product pages. The vendor also has a dedicated page explaining dynamic security.

Customer pain aside, additional downsides to this ink destruction scheme became clearer earlier this year, perhaps with the help of Lady Karma, when Canon had to instruct customers how to bypass its own DRM warnings after a pandemic-related shortage affected its ability to make toners with his chips.

HP did not disclose such concerns, but as analysts highlighted the impact of supply chain restrictions, its printer business fell 6 percent to $4.6 billion in the third quarter of 2022.