The FTC v. John Deere was the starting point for the right to repair
Today, America The Federal Trade Commission has filed a lawsuit against agricultural equipment manufacturer Deere & Company — maker of iconic green John Deere tractors, harvesters and lawn mowers — on longstanding grounds that they Don’t want customers to repair their own devices.
“Farmers rely on their farm equipment to make a living and feed their families,” FTC Chairwoman Lina Khan wrote in a report. declare next to Full complaint. “Unfair repair restrictions could mean farmers face unnecessary delays during tight planting and harvest times.”
The FTC’s main complaint here revolves around software. Deere Location software restrictions on its operationmeaning certain features and calibrations on its tractors can only be unlocked by mechanics with the appropriate digital key. Deere licenses those keys only to its authorized dealers, meaning farmers often can’t take their tractors to more convenient third-party facilities or just fix the problem themselves. The lawsuit would require John Deere to stop restricting the repair features customers can use and making them available to authorized outside dealers.
Kyle Wiens is CEO of retailer Movement Repair iFixit and an occasional contributor to WIRED who first wrote about John Deere Tactics do not like to be corrected in 2015. In an interview today, he noted how frustrated farmers feel when they try to correct mistakes but stumble over Deere’s policies.
“When you have something that doesn’t work, if you’re 10 minutes away from the store, it’s not a big deal,” Wiens said. “If the store is three hours away, which is where farmers are in most of the country, that’s a big problem.”
The other difficulty is that US copyright protections prevent anyone except John Deere from creating software that circumvents the restrictions the company has placed on its platform. Section 1201 of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act of 1998 makes it lawful for people to not object to technological measures covered by the act. John Deere equipment falls under that copyright policy.
“Not only are they anti-competitive, it’s actually illegal to compete with them,” Wiens said.
Deere in headlights
Wiens said that even though there was one decade belong to protest against John Deere from farmer And Repairability advocatescustomers who use the company’s machines haven’t seen much benefit from all that talk.
“Things really aren’t getting better for farmers,” Wiens said. “Even with all the noise around the right to repair over the years, nothing has changed significantly for farmers on the ground.”
He thinks this case against Deere will be different.
“This has to be something that does that,” Wiens said. “The FTC will not settle until John Deere provides the software. This is a step in the right direction.”
Deere’s reluctance to make its products more accessible has angered many customers and even drawn general bipartisan support. congressional support to be repairable in the agricultural space. The FTC alleges John Deere also committed violations law approved by the Colorado state government in 2023 agricultural equipment requirements sold in the state to make operating software accessible to users.
“Deere’s illegal business practices have increased farmers’ repair costs and impaired farmers’ ability to make timely repairs,” the lawsuit states.
Deere & Company did not respond to a request for comment for this story.
Nathan Proctor, senior director of the Campaign for the Right to Repair at the advocacy group US PIRG, wrote a statement praised the FTC’s decision. He believes that no matter how this incident unfolds, it will be a positive step for the broader right to redress movement.
“I think this discovery paints a clear picture that their devices were programmed to monopolize certain repair functions,” Proctor told WIRED. “And I expect Deere to fix the problem or pay the price. I don’t know how long that will take. But this is an important milestone because once the genie is out of the bottle, it can’t be taken back.”
