Thu, 3:48 p.m. Economics imj
The range of door locks, bicycles, body scales, remote controls and many other products for everyday use has been expanded to include smart variants in recent years. They promise additional functions thanks to wireless communication or via a connection to the manufacturer’s cloud servers. However, this poses a risk: unpatched security gaps could make a device dangerous. If the manufacturer decides to discontinue a product or even goes bankrupt, the “smart device”, which was probably expensive, may no longer work at all. An investigation by the US Federal Trade Commission (FTC) statedthat 89 percent of all manufacturers of intelligent devices do not provide any information about how long they ensure that the software is updated.
For the Study FTC employees put themselves in the shoes of customers who wanted to find out more about a particular product. For a total of 189 smart devices, they specifically searched the manufacturers’ websites for information about how long software updates are provided. At the same time, they conducted an internet search to get the question answered before making a possible purchase – and limited themselves to a maximum search time of 3 minutes. For 89 percent of all products examined, no corresponding information was found in the manufacturer’s product descriptions. For two thirds of all smart devices examined, even an internet search did not provide the information you were looking for.
Possibly illegal
A wide range of devices were examined – from grills and vacuum cleaners to hearing aids and home security systems. The lack of this information could already be illegal according to the FTC – it refers to the Magnuson-Moss Warranty Act. This law requires that warranty conditions must be visible before the actual purchase. This requirement applies to warranted products valued at $15 or more. The FTC’s requirement for reliable information about software updates is likely to find broad support in society. Whether the rules laid down in the Magnuson-Moss Warranty Act are sufficient remains to be seen – the law dates back to 1975 and thus from the era of landline telephones.
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