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HP’s 'All-In' Printer Rental Watches Everything You Print, Tells HP All About It

In addition to tracking the printer’s online or offline status, page count, and ink levels, your rented printer will look at the types of documents you’re printing (e.g., PDF, JPG, Word), the types of devices that initiated the print job, “peripheral devices,” and other “metrics” related to the service, the All-In Plan’s terms read. This is on top of the personal information HP collects upon initiating the plan, like your location and your company name (if you have one). By signing up for the service, the terms say, you “grant to HP a non-exclusive, worldwide, royalty-free right to use, copy, store, transmit, modify, create derivative works of and display [your] non-personal data for its business purposes.”

HiddenLayer5 , (edited )
@HiddenLayer5@lemmy.ml avatar

Can someone tell me why this is even necessary? Network printing has existed for almost as long as printers have and doesn't require the cloud. There are standard protocols for discovering printers on the network and sending prints to them. I'm on Linux, have never installed printer drivers or even manually set up a printer, and I can print just fine over the network, it just knows which device is a printer and I can send prints to it with a single click. It even knows what the printer's capabilities are, for example whether it can print double sided. Are people so afraid of the system print dialog that they insist on using HP's app or something?

AA5B ,

Damn HP! My three year old laptop that I mostly de-crappified was just updated with a pop up selling HP extended warranty. They made it look like a system dialog, there was no “quit”, and “send personal data to HP” was selected by default.

I had to explicitly select to not sending data, explicitly select to make the choice permanent instead of bugging me later, before clicking ok

Never again HP, never again. It’s so sad to see a formerly great engineering company stooping this low as just another sleazy huckster

csm10495 ,
@csm10495@sh.itjust.works avatar

I've yet to meet one person who I think is dumb enough to subscribe to this.

wanderingmagus ,

So what happens if on the off chance someone decides to use the government purchasing system for COTS purchases and convince the SCIF to use one of these HP printers, and then try printing TS//SCI or other highly classified national security documents on the printer? Asking for a friend.

INHALE_VEGETABLES ,

When*

KairuByte ,
@KairuByte@lemmy.dbzer0.com avatar

Honest answer? The person doing the printing is likely penalized at best, and HP get a slap on the wrist at worst.

werefreeatlast ,

Time to snif out the packets and replace them with cool things like

"BDSM_training_Gangbang_at_HPHQ_tuesday.pdf"

And the like. We could even just flood their database until they decide to block us.

INHALE_VEGETABLES ,

This is the way.

Also can you send me a copy of that daddy

moneyinphx ,

Unless you are a business getting printers on commercial leases, do yourself a favour and just buy a Brother laser printer and stop having issues with printers and start saving money as well.

Kerensky1101 ,

Can confirm, my brother laser printer has lasted 14 years and the current toner cartridge was purchased 6 years ago.

Buddahriffic ,

Alternatively, if you print as rarely as I do, just go to Staples or a print shop. Cheaper and I don't need to set aside any space for a printer.

uriel238 ,
@uriel238@lemmy.blahaj.zone avatar

The whole printer-as-a-service thing felt odious from the get-go, so the first thing HP should have done was to front a whole lot of good faith: Don't spy on the customer. Don't sell the data you get. Encrypt all data that gets passed between printer and HP and don't look at anything except what is necessary to service the printer.

That HP couldn't even make this step seems to imply they don't care, or assume their customer base is just that easy to abuse, that it has to throw in lease terms, data collection and contrived inconvenience to halt service. That tells us the whole plan was created as a grift from the beginning, rather than a well-intended service that corrupted in time.

Maybe HP shareholders aren't using enough lubricant.

FightinFalcn ,

That could be, or alternatively, they could be doing the classic corporate step back. "Oh you didn't like paying for hardware with limited control AND spying on you at all times? We're sorry, we will only rent your hardware like we planned, because we listen to you. "

dangblingus ,

You'd have to be a complete mental deficient to go out and consciously decide to buy a brand new HP product in 2024. Every single day it's more bad publicity for HP and yet they don't receive any consumer backlash that lasts longer than the breath required to complain about it.

MrBusiness ,

Ain't nobody printing much anymore, just shit companies finding ways to squeeze what customers are left. I got a b&w brother printer years ago and it's been doin just fine without all the extra "features". If brother went the way hp is going I wouldn't have a printer at home anymore.

Bdtrngl ,

My 4 year old brother all in one was one of the best home purchases I've made.

mriormro ,
@mriormro@lemmy.world avatar

I haven't owned a printer in, like, 10 years and I know I'm not an outlier. This sort of shit isn't necessarily going to bring me back into the fold.

0x0 ,

I miss my Epson Stylus Color, had it around until i couldn't find cartridges for it anymore because.. built-in obsolescence.

moitoi ,

The first thing to do is not connecting a printer to internet.

derpgon ,

Forgot the 0th step - don't buy an HP printer

user224 ,
@user224@lemmy.sdf.org avatar

HP+ printers REQUIRE internet connection. Right from the start.

RiikkaTheIcePrincess ,
@RiikkaTheIcePrincess@pawb.social avatar

I feel like corps have gotten bored with "you will own nothing and you will be happy" and moved on to "you will be owned and you will be happy." Like, damn, people are absolute livestock in a freaky fucked-up way. You "buy" something and it sits there extracting value from you. You "rent" something and it gets to enjoy the utility you provide, for a time.

Just seems like "ownership" is totally screwed-up wrong, y'know? One can't have anything any more, it's all corporate property they let us pay to install into our own lives for them. grumblegrumblegrumble!

MeThisGuy ,

seems like we should get at least 3/5ths of a vote on the matter

Shurimal ,

But this is the whole point; for a publicly traded company the people who buy their products are not the customers for whom they create value. Shareholders and investors are the real customers. People who buy the products are precisely just a resource to extract value from for these companies.

OberonSwanson ,
@OberonSwanson@sh.itjust.works avatar

So, public espionage, no one sane should accept this behavior for something they paid for.

b3an ,
@b3an@lemmy.world avatar

To pay for this privilege too? HP is insane.
Avoid like the plague.

HeyJoe ,

That's what I was thinking! I never paid for a printer subscription service, and I never will, but they are really telling me I get to pay them to take all my data as well? If this is marketed at businesses in any way its a privacy nightmare, which would probably mean even if they wanted to use them they couldn't due to sharing confidential information. I also wonder how many companies won't know this until they already use them and realize HP has data on them that now holds them liable.

SlopppyEngineer ,

Soon they'll have an ad supported model that prints ads on empty spots on the page and as a banner at the bottom.

StuffYouFear ,

Oh fuck please dont give them ideas

Threeme2189 ,

Just wait until your cars infotainment system blasts you with ads when stopped at a red light.

MeekerThanBeaker ,

Good guy HP: Trying to save the planet by making their printers so bad no one wants to print anymore. 👍

Balthazar ,
@Balthazar@sopuli.xyz avatar

For those who are completely clueless, this is meant as satire

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