Millionaire Condemns Samsung and Apple for Limiting Lifetime

It is one of the first sanctions in the world to condemn Apple and Samsung, two of the largest mobile phone manufacturing companies in the world, to limit the life of their devices and to intentionally slow them down.

RegenerationNovember 2, 2018.- On the order of the Italian competition authority, Apple will have to pay a fine of 10 million euros and Samsung 5 million euros. Both companies were fined millions for deliberately fining the useful life of a phone to force the customer to buy a new one.

This is one of the first punishments in the world to sanction a practice called "programmed obsolescence", also known as "programmed obsolescence", which involves programming the device with a specific amount of time so that from that date it becomes a room. obsolete, non-functional, useless or unusable.

The Italian government's accusations against Apple and Samsung are about "dishonest commercial practices". The operating system updates of the previous models of these two brands "have caused serious malfunctions and have significantly reduced their performance, thus accelerating their replacement," he explained.

For Samsung, this practice was applied to the Note 4 model to install a new version of Android (Google operating system) designed for a newer model, in Note 7, which resulted in the creation of the models. . 4 has become slow.

The Italian government also punished Apple for failing to inform its customers of the characteristics of the lithium vein, particularly with regard to its lifespan, as well as recommendations from this manufacturer to keep them in good condition and to use them correctly. That's why this company had to pay twice as much as Samsung.

The Italian regulator of competition has opened the investigation since last January, after several consumer complaints of both brands, but Samsung refused to negotiate.

Although this is the first $ 1 million fine for dishonest practices, there is a history in other countries where clients are already being investigated. The Paris prosecutor's office has opened an investigation against Apple in January this year for suspicion of planned obsolescence.

In addition, in the United States, a case was opened by the Department of Justice and the Securities and Exchange Commission – which oversees the stock market of this country – for alleged breach of stock exchange rules due to the slowing down of some models. # 39; s iPhone

This last case arose after several complaints and user reports, after which Apple had to recognize that he had done so intentionally in some models, with the argument of wanting to "extend their life span" and to prevent devices from shutting down unexpectedly.

Then we reproduce an excerpt from the document Chronicle of an Announced Tragedy by Jalil Saab Hasanille, published in 2014 by the UNAM Digital University Journal:

Scheduled obsolescence = contamination

Scheduled obsolescence is the practice of artificially shortening the useful life of a product or service, with the aim of influencing or inducing the decisions of a product or service. Consumer purchase in favor of the manufacturer or service provider. The planned obsolescence dates back to the 1930s, with London's document The End London Depression to Obsolescence, but this phrase was popularized by industrial designer Brooks Stevens in 1954, "which inculcated in the buyer the desire to own a little newer, a little better, a little earlier than necessary. "

However, since 1924, manufacturers of incandescent lamps (projectors) have been imposing this innovation in the economy, as part of the Phoebus agreement, which aimed to reduce their half-life by approximately 2,500 hours to 1 000 only. Dupont, with its extremely resistant nylon fiber, Apple with its iPods with irreplaceable batteries or Micosoft with its obsolete software, among others.

Needs and their satisfactions are pillars of the economy. When, for example, consumption habits are changed, a fundamental element of the culture of any human conglomerate is changing, which has an impact on the family or the social economy.

According to some calculations, one ton of waste thrown by the last consumer involves the production of 5 tons of manufacturing waste and 20 tons of waste during the initial extraction (mining, pumping, slaughtering, exploitation, etc.). . The consumption of materials is huge and growing, despite technical progress and timid recycling policies. Biotechnology and nanotechnology can provide solutions in the future. However, in the meantime, we will drown in garbage. The "non-returnable" has been translated into a curse for the world. As a sample, we have the Greater Pacific Waste Area, also known as plastic soup (coordinates 135 ° to 155 ° W and 35 ° to 42 ° N), which measures between 700,000 km² and 1 , 5 million km² and contains about 100 million tons of waste, mainly plastics: 15.7 kg per inhabitant of the planet.

Among the most serious problems, oil spills are at the top of the list. Because of their size, they highlighted: the Gulf War (1 770 000 tonnes in 1991), Deepwater Horizont (590 000 tonnes in 2010) and Ixtoc I (467 000 tonnes in 1979). Added to this are the massive industrial and urban drainages, the inadequate management of fertilizers and insecticides, the waste of mining, the irrational fishing which, for human and animal consumption, led to the capture of 20 million tons. in 1950 to 86 million tons in 2000. Currently, demand is increasing and production is decreasing.