Today Google bricked my Chromebook by force-installing a hidden extension

Re:Today Google bricked my Chromebook by force-installing a ... by em-bee on Saturday March 29, 2025 @07:07AM (#43514503)

laws should be adapted to extend the warranty every time a remote change is made to the device. basically, the warranty should hold as long as the device is maintained. say, each update should come with half a year of warranty. it's a bit tricky as it could motivate companies to stop updating, but that could be solved with a separate law forcing companies to provide an extra number of years to provide updates. (if that doesn't exist already)

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Re:Today Google bricked my Chromebook by force-installing a ... by juergbi on Saturday March 29, 2025 @07:25AM (#43514601)

This may make sense if the extended warranty is limited to defects introduced by the remote change. I.e., if they remotely break your device, they should be responsible for fixing the damage. A full warranty extension doesn't seem reasonable to me, though.

With regards to your last sentence, I think a good first step would be to require at least security and other critical updates to be provided within the full warranty period. And this would make sense even without the (limited) warranty extension, and I actually consider it more important.

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Re:Today Google bricked my Chromebook by force-installing a ... by em-bee on Saturday March 29, 2025 @07:32AM (#43514638)

if the extended warranty is limited to defects introduced by the remote change

yes, of course. it may be hard to distinguish though. the device getting hot may create additional stress on the mainboard or RAM or other parts causing it to break faster.

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Re:Today Google bricked my Chromebook by force-installing a ... by haswell on Saturday March 29, 2025 @07:19AM (#43514565)

I don’t think relying on new laws as the primary incentive is going to get far, especially when big tech has the outsized influence they do on government. This then just leaves a strong incentive to stop updating things.

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Re:Today Google bricked my Chromebook by force-installing a ... by ginko on Saturday March 29, 2025 @07:11AM (#43514528)

Sounds like a good way to make sure that companies drop SW support as quickly as possible.

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Re:Today Google bricked my Chromebook by force-installing a ... by tossandthrow on Saturday March 29, 2025 @07:16AM (#43514546)

Not if it as accompanied by laws about a lower bar for the functioning of software. Eg. regular sec patches etc.

However, this would be a great way of separating hardware and software products - and would that be so bad?

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Re:Today Google bricked my Chromebook by force-installing a ... by TeMPOraL on Saturday March 29, 2025 @09:24AM (#43515342)

They already do.

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Re:Today Google bricked my Chromebook by force-installing a ... by exe34 on Saturday March 29, 2025 @02:59PM (#43517666)

As long as they release all the source and build tools, I'm okay with that.

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Re:Today Google bricked my Chromebook by force-installing a ... by ginko on Saturday March 29, 2025 @06:14AM (#43514253)

If OP is in Europe Google could be drawn and quartered for GDPR violations.

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Re:Today Google bricked my Chromebook by force-installing a ... by kleiba on Saturday March 29, 2025 @07:00AM (#43514463)

"could" being the point here - as Joe Bloke, you're not going to get yourself into a legal dispute with Google, but it's not very hard to return an electronic device as an ordinary end consumer when it's still under warranty.

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Re:Today Google bricked my Chromebook by force-installing a ... by dgellow on Saturday March 29, 2025 @08:00AM (#43514810)

Anyone can submit a complaint: https://www.edps.europa.eu/data-protection/our-role-supervis...

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Re:Today Google bricked my Chromebook by force-installing a ... by nottorp on Saturday March 29, 2025 @07:05AM (#43514488)

You don't need to sue Google, just file a complaint with whatever the GDPR authority is in your country ...

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Re:Today Google bricked my Chromebook by force-installing a ... by kleiba on Saturday March 29, 2025 @08:01AM (#43514818)

I'd be interested to know if anyone on HN has actually done that in the past, and what the experience was?

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Re:Today Google bricked my Chromebook by force-installing a ... by robin_reala on Saturday March 29, 2025 @12:37PM (#43516725)

Confiks managed to get Spotify to reinstate the API that allowed connections to SongShift with a GDPR complaint about the right to data portability (or threat thereof): https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24764371

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Re:Today Google bricked my Chromebook by force-installing a ... by zazazache on Saturday March 29, 2025 @07:09AM (#43514516)

Better to just contact NOYB directly, they are responsible for about 50% of all GDPR fines to date. Outside of Norway the DPAs seem mostly useless, especially when it comes to big tech…

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Re:Today Google bricked my Chromebook by force-installing a ... by Matthyze on Saturday March 29, 2025 @10:58AM (#43516061)

That's not how the GDPR works. Just like criminal procedure, subjects do not sue alleged offenders themselves. The state instead sues on their behalf.

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Re:Today Google bricked my Chromebook by force-installing a ... by hilbert42 on Saturday March 29, 2025 @06:27AM (#43514307)

Exactly!

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Re:Today Google bricked my Chromebook by force-installing a ... by mardifoufs on Saturday March 29, 2025 @09:28AM (#43515368)

GPDR forbids local OCR? Can you be more specific

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