The Federal Commerce Fee (FTC) is probing whether or not John Deere used unfair practices associated to the restore of its agricultural tools that may violate the FTC Act.
The investigation into John Deere’s restrictions on clients’ proper to restore agricultural tools was revealed by information analytics firm Hargrove & Associates, Inc. (HAI), because it fights a subpoena-like civil investigative demand (CID) from the FTC at hand over gross sales information. As reported earlier by Reuters, the corporate fears sharing the data the FTC seeks about agricultural tools gross sales may hurt its enterprise relationships.
“We’re cooperating with the FTC, right now we can’t remark any additional whereas an investigation is ongoing,” John Deere spokesperson Jen Hartmann stated in a press release.
John Deere has been one of many primary targets of the right-to-repair motion (together with Apple), which seeks to offer clients extra choices to restore tools with third-party providers to broaden entry and decrease prices. However firms which have resisted absolutely opening their ecosystem are inclined to cite points with safety, which is a message John Deere CTO Jahmy Hindman echoed throughout his 2021 look on the Decoder podcast. He argued, “Do you actually need a tractor happening the highway with software program on it that has been modified for steering or modified for braking ultimately that may have a consequence that no one considered?”
