Hewlett-Packard Co. (HP) has issued a public apology for a recent security update that locked out third-party ink cartridges and forcing consumers to use only HP-branded ink.

In a statement, HP Chief Operating Officer John Flaxman claimed that the intent behind the update, which activated a dormant feature in some of its printers, was to “ensure the best consumer experience and protect them from counterfeit and third-party ink cartridges that do not contain an original HP security chip and that infringe on our IP.

“When ink cartridges are cloned or counterfeited, the customer is exposed to quality and potential security risks, compromising the printing experience,” Flaxman said. “As is standard in the printing business, we have a process for authenticating supplies. The most recent firmware update included a dynamic security feature that prevented some untested third-party cartridges that use cloned security chips from working, even if they had previously functioned.”

Reports of HP’s security update first surfaced last week, and shortly afterward, the Electronic Freedom Foundation (EFF), a nonprofit devoted to “devoted to defending technological freedom, human rights and privacy,” penned a letter to HP, criticizing the company for the move and calling on it to publicly apologize and remove the “anti-feature.”

“HP customers should be able to use the ink of their choosing in their printers for the same reason that Cuisinart customers should be able to choose whose bread goes in their toasters,” the EFF said in its letter, which was written by Boing Boing editor and copyright activist Cory Doctorow. “The practice of ‘tying’ is rightly decried by economists and competition regulators as an invitation to monopoly pricing and reduced competition and innovation. HP customers should choose HP ink because it is the best, not because their printer won’t work with a competitor’s brand.”

In apologizing, Flaxman conceded, “We should have done a better job of communicating about the authentication procedure to customers. Although only a small number of customers have been affected, one customer who has a poor experience is one too many.”

Flaxman said that HP would will re-enable third-party ink cartridges on the affected printers with an optional firmware update that should arrive sometime in the next two weeks.

Bait and switch alleged

Still, Doctorow argued that this “anti-feature” was particularly upsetting because of the way HP implemented it, calling the move an abuse of the printers’ security updates. Not only that, but Doctorow also called the update a bait-and-switch.

“The software update that prevented the use of third-party ink was reportedly distributed in March, but this anti-feature itself wasn’t activated until September,” Doctorow wrote. “That means that HP knew, for at least six months, that some of its customers were buying your products because they believed they were compatible with any manufacturer’s ink, while you had already planted a countdown timer in their property that would take this feature away.”

HP is hardly the first company to try to force consumers to use its products by implementing a form of physical Digital Rights Management. Keurig Inc. made a similar gaff in 2014 with its single-cup coffee machine, the Keurig 2.0, which the company engineered to lock out unlicensed drink pods. As a result, Keurig became the subject of an antitrust suit, which alleged that the company’s move is anti-competitive.

Photo by frankieleon