Re:More awful IoT stuff
by oliwarner on Wednesday June 22, 2016 @06:37PM
(#11957590)
There are mechanisms for policing (certainly in the UK) this but:
- Containers are MASSIVE. Seriously. You can fit hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of thousands of plug-sized widgets in a container.
- Millions of containers leave China every day.
- People lie about certification, provenance, component specs. Even if you do test one, the next 999,999 are probably all using shitty capacitors.
- There are many ports that don't all share data.
The only stuff that gets refused are where you have repeat offenders coming into the same port with the same dangerous stuff.
And yes, MPAA and other trademark bandits with all the cash can pay to police this stuff. It isn't fair... But I'm not sure the world would have the appetite for absorbing the costs in import tax. A testing container of plugs would push the price up way beyond $30 a unit and that's testing 1/1000.
Demanding certified manufacturing might be an option but that's expensive for China so they'll resist (or do a job equally shitty as the plugs they'd be supposed to police).
- Containers are MASSIVE. Seriously. You can fit hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of thousands of plug-sized widgets in a container.
- Millions of containers leave China every day.
- People lie about certification, provenance, component specs. Even if you do test one, the next 999,999 are probably all using shitty capacitors.
- There are many ports that don't all share data.
The only stuff that gets refused are where you have repeat offenders coming into the same port with the same dangerous stuff.
And yes, MPAA and other trademark bandits with all the cash can pay to police this stuff. It isn't fair... But I'm not sure the world would have the appetite for absorbing the costs in import tax. A testing container of plugs would push the price up way beyond $30 a unit and that's testing 1/1000.
Demanding certified manufacturing might be an option but that's expensive for China so they'll resist (or do a job equally shitty as the plugs they'd be supposed to police).