Whatever happened to business ethics?

On September 13, thousands of HP inkjet printers stopped working and displayed this error message: “The following ink cartridges appear to be missing or damaged. Replace the ink cartridges to resume printing. “

The problem is that the message was a big, fat lie. The printer was fine, the cartridge was working perfectly, the print quality was good, and ink levels were, in most of the cases, right. Instead, the company had programmed that message in the firmware of their printers so that, from that date, printers that were working perfectly normally began to reject the cartridges that were not manufactured by HP and would not print unless they were replaced. Thousands of customers protested on HP’s forums saying their printers had stopped working until they replaced their ink cartridges, and all because of a software message arbitrarily set at a predetermined date.

HP’s apologies referring to an alleged unforeseen side effect from a firmware upgrade, are false: many printers that do not have access to the company’s network also were affected by the error, suggesting that the company had come up with the brilliant idea of programming the error at the factory: a pre-programmed date to get customers to purchase HP’s own cartridges.

Everything about the printer business model is disgusting, and has been for many years. The catalog of…