Anti-consumer practices

3D Printing restrictions and bans are legal, technical, and policy limits that governments, platforms, and manufacturers place on how consumer 3D printers may be bought, modified, or used. The most…

Anti-rollback, or ARB, for device firmware is a feature of some devices that prevents the device from booting if it detects that the device has been downgraded to an older, unapproved software build…

Apps running on Android and potentially other operating systems (OS) can detect if the device has been modded and refuse to function if that is the case. This can happen if the device allows the user…

Main article: Digital rights management Digital Rights Management (DRM) in automotives is a practice in which automotive manufacturers restrict some of the functionalities of their products by using…

Bait-and-switch is the action of advertising goods that are an apparent bargain, with the intention of substituting inferior or more expensive goods. The measures against this practice depend greatly…

Most devices with rechargeable batteries have a battery management system (BMS) module. This module monitors and regulates key variables and is capable of communicating with the device and preventing…

Buy Now, Pay Later (BNPL) is a financing option for online purchases that allows consumers to pay for items in four installments. Companies such as Klarna, Affirm, PayPal, and Apple Pay offer Buy…

A "buy one, get one free" deal (abbreviated BOGO) is a form of sales promotion wherein a second unit of a good is sold for free only if the first unit is bought at full price. This can be used as a…

Consent-or-pay, also known as pay-or-okay, is a business model implemented in response to the European Union's General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). Under this model, users of a website are…

A dark pattern is an umbrella term for all deceptive tricks faced by consumers, and it relies on behavioral psychology and human biases in order to make the user act against their own intent, like…

Data lock-in limits how device owners can access and manage data stored on the device they own. For example, some mobile applications store user data in a way they can only be viewed from inside the…

Deceptive language used by companies to impede the rights of consumers while appearing benevolent comes in many forms. Many of them can be boiled down to a few principles.

Digital rights management (DRM), alternatively known as digital restrictions management, broadly refers to any kind of access control technology that is used to deliberately restrict the usage of…

Disabling online features in retaliation is a practice in which businesses deny access to online functionality because the user of a product did not adhere to terms or policies unrelated to the…

Discontinuation bricking occurs when a product is rendered non-functional ("bricked") because the manufacturer has decided to discontinue it. Discontinuation bricking usually occurs in products that…

Platform decay, commonly known as Enshittification or crapification, is a practice in which companies (usually large ones) allow the quality of the products or services they provide to decline over…

False advertising is an illegal business strategy where a consumer is lied to or otherwise mislead with the intention of increasing the probability that they will purchase a product.

Feature Ransom is a form of rights stripping when core functionality is restricted or removed unless users accept new terms or conditions.

Features on Demand (FoD), also called On-Demand Features (ODF) or Functions on Demand, refers to the process in which businesses provide a particular function or feature that can be added whenever…

Financial censorship is the practice of major payment processors refusing to process transactions for individuals or entities that do not align with their values. Although some banks and processors…

Forced account registration/sign-in/log-in is a practice committed by entities, where users must have (and use) a digital identity to perform simple tasks that may have otherwise been possible…

Forced app download is a practice committed by businesses and government entities where users must download an app on their smartphones to perform simple tasks that may have otherwise been possible…

Forced arbitration is a practice in which businesses can require their customers to resolve disputes through arbitration instead of a traditional court system.

Basic Input/Output System, also known as BIOS, is a type of firmware used to provide runtime services for operating systems and programs and to perform hardware initialization during the booting…

Forced cloud, forced internet, forced remote connection, etc... is a practice in which software or hardware requires a continuous/constant (or, at least, regular) device connection to remote servers…

Forced Identification is the practice of forcing the user to unnecessarily provide their ID in order to access a product or service. The primary concern for forced identification comes from how…

Forced retention of payment methods is when online platforms and payment processors store user payment credentials, often without a clear or easily accessible way to revoke them. In many cases, cards…

A game-of-telephone is a children's game that originates from China; where a starting message is passed through to multiple people. Then once the final message has been passed it's compared against…

Greenwashing is a form of advertising or marketing that deceptively uses social and environmental public relations (PR) in order to persuade the public, investors, and consumers that a company's…

Main article: End-user license agreement End-User License Agreements are often purposefully obfuscated through legal and technical language to hide terms and permissions that negatively affect the…

Dynamic Security is a technology implemented by HP in some of their printers to restrict the use of aftermarket cartridges. This technology ensures that only original cartridges can be used, and it…

Inactive account deletion is where accounts get deleted after being unused, with the time-frame often being from 6 months to 5 years.

Legal Lockout is a form of rights stripping where terms are implemented that modify users' legal rights or access to legal remedies. A common legal lockout practice is to implement forced arbitration…

Malicious compliance is an action where one complies with a request or demand, but in such a way that it follows the wording, but not the spirit or intent of the mandate. Applied to consumer rights…

Nitter is a free and open source privacy-focused frontend for X (Twitter), which was temporarily shut down by a cease and desist from X Corp in 2026.

Part pairing is a practice in which manufacturers serialize individual components to effectively mandate the use of original equipment manufacturer (OEM) parts and approved technicians for repairs…

Planned obsolescence is a business strategy where products are intentionally designed to become obsolete, undesirable, or to stop functioning within a predetermined time-frame, forcing consumers to…

Price anchoring is often a business strategy where a company sets a value of a certain package or tier to make other deals they provide seem more attractive.

Price fixing is determined by the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) asAn agreement (written, verbal, or inferred from conduct) among competitors to raise, lower, maintain, or stabilize prices or price…

Device deauthorization and remote disabling refers to the ability of technology companies like Apple and Microsoft to remotely lock, disable, or revoke access to consumer devices such as laptops…

Retailers requiring police reports for missing items in orders is a practice in which businesses ask customers to file a police report before they will process a refund or replacement for goods…

Rights stripping is the systematic removal or reduction of consumer rights through agreement modifications.

Self-destructive design is a generic form of product design whereby it is possible that some or all functions of the device will cease functioning. Self-destructive design can occur unintentionally…

Sponsored content in consumer electronics system interfaces is the practice of placing paid promotional content on the primary navigation surface of a device a consumer has purchased: the home screen…

Subscription lockout is the practice of imposing a subscription barrier on a product or service which used to be free or could be acquired by doing an one-time purchase. The lockout might affect…

A Waste Ink Counter (WIC) is a firmware-based lockout that causes printers to cease to function when a counter has been incremented above a certain value.

Microsoft will cap the cloud streaming included with an Xbox Game Pass subscription at 15 hours a month on Ultimate, 10 on Premium and 5 on Essential, from November 2026. Microsoft announced the…