CompTIA

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CompTIA

Basic information
Founded	1982
Legal Structure	Private
Industry	Information Technology
Also known as
Official website	https://comptia.org/

CompTIA, the Computing Technology Industry Association, is an American non-profit trade association that issues professional certifications for the information technology (IT) industry. It is considered one of the IT industry's top trade associations. It was founded on January 1st 1982 in Downer's Grove, Illinois. CompTIA issues vendor-neutral professional certifications in over 120 countries.

Consumer impact summary

• User Freedom: Changed certificate expiration time from lifetime to 3 years
• User Privacy: Online tests routinely taken using OnVUE
• Business Model: IT training/certifications
• Market Competition: competing with Cisco, and other certification offering companies.

Incidents

This is a list of all consumer-protection incidents this company is involved in. Any incidents not mentioned here can be found in the CompTIA category.

Certification expiration (2011)

Historically, CompTIA promoted its high-end certifications of A+, Network+, and Security+ as lifetime. In January of 2011, the company altered the status of such certifications, so they would expire within three years. According to this proposal, certified professionals would either need to re-certify for the exams or pay an annual maintenance fee to participate in a CEU (Continuing Education Units) program. CompTIA then updated the guidelines to have only the certificates earned after January 1, 2011 renewed every three years, with the requirement of documented hours of continuing education. Certificates earned prior to 2011 are still valid for lifetime and referred to as Good-for-Life, so replacing the Good-for-Life certification with an expirable one does not devalue the Good-for-Life certification.

Lobbying against Right to Repair (2017—2020)

In March of 2017, CompTIA lobbied against a Right to Repair legislation in Nebraska, claiming:

Hackers are constantly trying to break into a wide range of devices, including computers, servers, smartphones, and other industrial and consumer electronics. Any weakening of the current standards, including sharing sensitive diagnostic tools and proprietary hardware data, could expose customers to risk. Manufacturers also have strong concerns about unauthorized independent service providers who may take risks or cut corners and provide service without training or following safety standards.
Additionally, manufacturers make significant investments in the development of products and services, and the protection of intellectual property is a legitimate and important aspect of sustaining the health of all industry, including third party software developers who rely upon the device's DRM to protect their software from hackers. However, the bill compromises the intellectual property that creators invested heavily in to develop.

In February of 2020, CompTIA put forth a statement that it was stepping back from all lobbying activities related to Right to Repair legislation.

Proprietary invasive software required to be installed to personal devices if taking tests at home

CompTIA allows tests to be done online at home for their certifications, however this requires users to download and install the "OnVUE" proctoring software to their PC which is a monitoring software designed to make sure testers cannot cheat. it is closed source and cannot be ran on Linux or a Virtual machine. While CompTIA does allow test takers to visit a Pearson VUE test center and take a test in person some people may not be able to do this.

Products

Certifications (2011): Certificates issued after 2011 expire after 3 years.

See also

Cisco Systems, Inc.

Amazon

Google