From neufeld at gmail.com  Wed Feb 25 02:01:20 2009
From: neufeld at gmail.com (Brahm)
Date: Tue, 24 Feb 2009 20:01:20 -0600
Subject: [Printers] One Consumer's Encounter with Lexmark
Message-ID: <49A4A670.9090407@gmail.com>

Hey printer mailing list,

I've been following the forensic dot issue since I heard about it in 
October, and it really intrigued me. After some Google searching, I 
realized that there weren't a whole lot of published information about 
individual consumers taking action. The work done by the EFF and the MIT 
crew at SeeingYellow was awesome, but I was curious to see the company's 
response to an average consumer's inquiry.

I started from scratch and emailed and phoned the company - after 
getting juggled through tech support for a few months (they didn't 
believe the forensic tracking dots existed, and replaced my 
photoconductor units free of charge), I wrote the privacy officers of 
Lexmark in both the US and Canada. As I went along, I tracking my 
progress on a blog at http://brahmsyellowdots.blogspot.com/

To make a 5-month-long story short, if you write a company's privacy 
office complaining about the tracking dot issue, they will probably 
offer you a refund - at least that's what Lexmark did.

My main concern with this issue is that I see a lot of consumers out 
there complaining about this invasive technology, but no one seems to be 
reporting that they are being offered refunds! If I can contribute one 
thing to the yellow dot issue, it's that if you press your printer 
company long enough and hard enough, chances are they'll offer you a 
refund and you can replace the product with an inkjet printer or a 
combination of an inkjet and a B&W laser.

I've run out of steam and time to pursue the issue further, but perhaps 
another Lexmark owner can pick up where I left off. I managed to track 
down a few unpublished technical support numbers for the Canadian 
offices, and I've summarized the most important things that I've learned 
on this endeavor on my most recent blog post.

Kudos to everyone out there who has dedicated some time to this issue, 
the folks at the EFF and MIT are awesome! Go out and get your refunds if 
you want them! :)

-Brahm
-brahmsyellowdots.blogspot.com

From mako at atdot.cc  Wed Feb 25 02:51:10 2009
From: mako at atdot.cc (Benj. Mako Hill)
Date: Tue, 24 Feb 2009 21:51:10 -0500
Subject: [Printers] One Consumer's Encounter with Lexmark
In-Reply-To: <49A4A670.9090407@gmail.com>
References: <49A4A670.9090407@gmail.com>
Message-ID: <20090225025110.GM19137@yukidoke.org>

<quote who="Brahm" date="Tue, Feb 24, 2009 at 08:01:20PM -0600">
> I've been following the forensic dot issue since I heard about it in 
> October, and it really intrigued me. After some Google searching, I 
> realized that there weren't a whole lot of published information about 
> individual consumers taking action. The work done by the EFF and the MIT 
> crew at SeeingYellow was awesome, but I was curious to see the company's 
> response to an average consumer's inquiry.

From the MIT angle, I can say that I think we should have done a better
job of documenting the callin and such that happened. I'd be happy to
add my own, to point SeeingYellow towards others (like yours) or to
incorporate some way for people to add that information to the site.

> I started from scratch and emailed and phoned the company - after 
> getting juggled through tech support for a few months (they didn't 
> believe the forensic tracking dots existed, and replaced my 
> photoconductor units free of charge), I wrote the privacy officers of 
> Lexmark in both the US and Canada. As I went along, I tracking my 
> progress on a blog at http://brahmsyellowdots.blogspot.com/
> 
> To make a 5-month-long story short, if you write a company's privacy 
> office complaining about the tracking dot issue, they will probably 
> offer you a refund - at least that's what Lexmark did.

My own story (with HP) was pretty similar, although I never got offered
a refund. I was actually complaining about printers in my workplace so
I'm not sure I would have been able to take advantage of it, but it's
good to know.

Regards,
Mako

-- 
Benjamin Mako Hill
mako at atdot.cc
http://mako.cc/

Creativity can be a social contribution, but only in so far
as society is free to use the results. --GNU Manifesto
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