Article suggestions

This page is dedicated towards providing a communal list for users to submit potential articles to feature on the wiki, and to give editors inspiration on what pages they might want to add to the wiki. If you create an article based on an entry from this list, or see that someone else has done so, please make sure to delete the row from this page in order to prevent confusion.

Sources should be inserted within the 'refs' section of the table. If using the visual editor, take advantage of 'insert reference' via 'ctrl + shift + k' so that the sources are quick to add to future articles. If you are using the source editor, feel free to copy and paste the formatting from other correctly formatted references on the page. The more sources you include with an article idea, the more likely it is that others will pick the article idea up and run with it, so please attempt to include a good variety of descriptive sources!

Please take note of the wiki's Inclusion criteria when submitting article suggestions. If you see article suggestions here which do not fit the Wiki, feel free to remove them, leaving your reasoning in an edit note.

If you are an editor looking for further inspiration to write an article, you can also check out the Louis Rossmann video directory for a good collection of potential articles.

Example

Below is an example of what an entry should appear as:

Company	Summary of Incident	Refs
Nintendo	In 2025, the company Nintendo stripped Switch 2 consoles that used the MIG switch cartridge of all online functionality

List of incidents not yet covered

Company	Summary of Incident	Refs
ABC Financial Services	Manages memberships and recurring service subscriptions for other companies. Prevents customers from being able to cancel a service by locking them into a never-ending cycle of auto renewals, and not allowing the customer to opt out of auto renewal.
Affinity / Canva page created needs editors to help	Canva purchases Serif; the owner of perpetual license design software Affinity Publisher, Designer, and Photo on March 26th 2024. Provides a pledge to assure users that Canva will not "ruin" the suite. In October 2025, Affinity users are locked out of the community forum for a new "Creative Freedom" announcement on October 30th 2025. Complete radio silence for a whole month while they tease long term users on Twitter and Discord. Finally on October 30th 2025, the new Affinity software is announced as "free". Instead, all creative professionals that used the original software are forced to create a new Canva account to access the new Affinity and thus agree to Canva's ToS. Affinity redirects the pledge page to an announcement for the new software, effectively burying the original pledge. Questions about Canva now being able to monetize the work of professionals to train their own AI models sold to Canva users are left unanswered. Free, but at what cost? EDIT: Initial article has been written but needs more work, citation, and verification. See this article here.
Alibaba	WP
Amazon	Amazon renders Fire TV Blaster unusable, offers Amazon gift card to affected customers
Anker	In Anker's Terms of Service for Solix solar generator product, under 19.3 Mandatory Updates: In critical situations—such as addressing severe security vulnerabilities, complying with legal requirements, or ensuring compatibility with our service architecture—we reserve the right to issue mandatory Updates for both the firmware and the App. These essential updates may install automatically, or require immediate installation before further use, and you will not be permitted to opt out. If you fail to install such an update, certain device functionalities or access to the App may be limited or suspended to maintain the security and integrity of our service. https://www.anker.com/ca/policies/terms-of-service
Apple	Apple changes Logic Pro and the Apple office suite into a subscription when it was either a one time purchase or free with the mac.
Apple	$17 000 Apple Watch 18 karat gold edition out of support only 8 years after its introduction (not end of sale!). This means no software support, and, crucially, no repair or replacement parts. If the battery dies, the watch is but a paperweight.
Apple, Beats	No support for Powerbeats (4th generation) despite the headphones being under 5 years from when Apple last distributed the product for sale. The product is not listed as discontinued or vintage, and by Apple's own guidelines, should be eligible for replacement parts and repair. OEM replacement eartips cannot be purchased for any Beats earphones.
Apple iWork/Creator Studio	The update that makes the iWork apps part of the new Apple Creator Studio subscription now adds tracking that is enabled by default and implemented as opt-out. The information about it is displayed in a first launch screen without any immediate way opt out, which qualifies as a dark pattern. Instead, the user has to go through a slightly convoluted path via the iPhone/iPad system settings app, and under the submenu "Apps" find each of the iWork apps and disable analytics there individually for each app. On Desktop, it is under a dedicated menu item under the "Pages"/"Numbers"/"Keynote" menu.
archive.today / archive.ph (Web Archival Service)	The website used JavaScript embedded into the website code to conduct a DDOS attack from users' devices against a blogger who has voiced criticism of the service in the past. This may make also cause legal issues for users. NOTE: A similar technique has previously been used by Chinese search giant Baidu, so we might want to create a category or tag for this type of thing ADDENDUM: This page was reported to have been changing the information displayed in some archived screenshots, such as the author who published particular articles.
Arduino (/ɑːrˈdwiːnoʊ/) is an Italian open-source hardware and software company owned by Qualcomm	Arduino’s new terms of service worries hobbyists ahead of Qualcomm acquisition. User shall not: translate, decompile or reverse-engineer the Platform, or engage in any other activity designed to identify the algorithms and logic of the Platform’s operation, unless expressly allowed by Arduino or by applicable license agreements …
Atlassian	Users forced from on-premise to cloud only subscriptions Edit: Page has been started here, more work, citation, and verification needs to be done.
Axon	Tazers sold with lease agreement that makes purchase effectively a subscription.	[69]
Bayer	Wikipedia. See Monsanto
Best Buy	In late 2025, BestBuy added "Comparable Value" as means of comparing values of products that is of equivalent value to other products sold by manufacturers, 1st party, or 3rd party vendors. Changes to their pricing model has made it to where it is more difficult to determine overall value of a product compared to MSRP.
Bluesky	Introduced ID check for Direct Messaging to comply with laws in certain states and abroad, despite both the company and community being against it.
Bosch and Shimano	Electric bike companies including Bosch and Shimano limit consumer's abilities to access their e-bike electrical system such as when installing a new light or a phone charger. Special software only accessible to qualified bike shops is required to activate ports or accept new devices. Additional connectivity barriers may exist such as difficult to acquire Bosch specific cables.
Carvana	Saying cars that have been in accidents have not; Lies about inspection and does not replace brake pads even when worn down. Non-refundable $1,500 shipping fee. See Louis Rossmann's Video
Cloud-first	The antithesis of local-first. See "You Can't Control Your Data in the Cloud"
Cloudary Holdings Limited / Webnovel	Terms of service with binding Arbitration.
Devolo	Devolo switches off servers and removes their app from stores for their "Home Control" system, thus severely reducing the functionality of their devices (apparently Z-Wave-based).
Dell and HP	HP and Dell have disabled HEVC (H.264/H.265) hardware encoding and decoding support built into their laptops’ CPUs using both Intel and AMD processors.
E621	Terms of service that require agreement to forced arbitration to use the website.
EcoVac	Vacuum cleaner robots produced by company 'EcoVac' were found vulnerable to hacking over bluetooth allowing for remote control and access to camera feed. Security researcher Dennis Giese notified the company in December of 2023. In August of 2024, the issue was described by the company as "extremely rare in typical user environments and require specialized hacking tools and physical access to the device."
Elegoo	The Elegoo Centauri Carbon 3d printer has been proven to use open source Klipper software which requires them to publish their changes to the code.
Foxit Reader	Updater uses dark pattern to trick unsuspecting users into installing a trial version of their paid product. The checkbox is enabled again by default with each update in the hope that the user misses it by accident at some point.
Gaggia	Between 2015 to 2019, the redesigned Gaggia Classic removed the traditional three-way solenoid valve. The valve was restored in the 2019 Gaggia Classic Pro after criticism and backlash from the espresso enthusiast community.
Google Chromecast	Chromecast has transitioned from a standalone product to one that requires the Google Home app for setup and control. This change prevents customers who either don't own a smartphone or prefer not to use the app from accessing their Chromecast devices. As a result, certain televisions—such as the Caixon EC43S1UA, which relied on built-in Chromecast functionality—can no longer be used as intended. This effectively removes a key feature from a product that was already purchased, diminishing its value or rendering it unusable altogether.
Google TLS Changes	Google's new requirements to certificate authorities require separate authority/signing chains to be used to issue Server Authentication and Client Authentication certificates. Therefore, starting 11 February 2026, Let's Encrypt will no longer include the Client Authentication EKU on default certificates
Google	Google apparently plans to reduce the interval of publishing source code of security patches they consider non-critical. This is another blow to the custom ROM community. Right now we don't have these incidents organised chronologically, maybe we should have a table with a timeline of measures Google takes to enshittify and close down Android (more APIs moved to Play Services, Developer verification, withholding AOSP device trees for Pixel devices to mess with Graphene OS, now delayed source code disclosure). What's worst, they always cite safety as a reason.
Google Maps	Google restricts data visible in Google Maps for users who are not signed in with an account. Reviews and photos are no longer visible without login. This also forces users to agree to Google's TOS and logs them into all other Google services, such as YouTube or Google Search so that now all their data in those other services is associated with their accounts. This also raises concerns that other services such as YouTube might follow.
Google, Mozilla, Apple, Microsoft, but largely Google-led	Google Chrome, Mozilla Firefox, and Safari are removing XSLT 1.0 support, which could break critical parts of government's websites worldwide. There are valid security reasons for them to want to stop supporting this 1999-era standard, however they have had 26+ years to update to a newer standard (such as the 2017-era 3.1 standard, which is backwards compatible and would allow these sites to continue to work). The single unpaid developer maintaining these libraries has more or less retired after getting flooded with impossible to satisfy security requests from these companies. There is an existing project called XRUST to implement the 3.1 standard, which is 2/3rds of the way through supporting all the features of 1.0 - the XSLT part fully supports all the 1.0 features at this point. XSLT is part of the W3C Consortium's open web standards for formatting and presenting XML, and is also how RSS works, so RSS feeds would stop working as well, disrupting the livelihoods of podcasters. This has led to questions of who owns the web - the public (including the government) who paid for and laid down the highways / web infrastructure - or a handful of large corporations?
GoPro Hero 12	GoPro Hero 12 requires the GoPro app to be installed before you can use the camera. Many currently used devices are not compatible with the app, therefore making use of the camera difficult to impossible for new owners or upon camera factory reset. There's also the question of what data the app collects and whether it requires login and or camera activation.
Hikvision	Chinese surveillance camera manufacturer complicit in Uighur genocide which used to advertise recognition of praying and ramadan fasting among its selling points. Similarly to Flock, they are in use world wide and likely feed directly into the Chinese government's surveillance infrastructure and could conceivably be used to find dissidents world-wide. Recently, the city of Hamburg has installed them (Google Translate Version in English).
Internet radios	I'd like a page where I can share information about internet radios "openness." Few allow you to enter a radio station's URL (which I would consider the least intrusive option). Most depend on third-party websites or apps; some of which have already bricked devices.
IPVideo Corporation (owned by Motorola)	Manufacturer of surveillance hardware. The notable example that brought them to my attention is the Halo 3C/3C-PC Smart Sensor, which is deployed in places such as school bathrooms and subsidized/social housing. This system has a variety of sensors on it, from air quality ones (for detecting smoking/vape usage) all the way to microphones (ostensibly for audio analysis to identify aggression and gunshots, without the capability to stream the audio elsewhere, but this not a limitation built into the hardware and could be changed by a firmware update).
iRacing	iRacing is a racing game that's subscription-based, requiring payment just to play the actual game in either online or offline mode.
itch.io, Night School Studios, Netflix	In September 2024, users who purchased the game Oxenfree on itch.io were warned that the game was going to be pulled from the platform on October 1st. Consumers would not be able to download the installers after this date, so they would lose access unless they had them backed up. Users speculated that Netflix, the parent company of the development studio, had ordered the move; however, no response from Netflix or the developers was ever published. This is particularly notable because it is against itch.io's terms of service: "Users shall retain a license to this content even after the content is removed from the Service."
Japan Times, The	The Japan Times uses the DMCA to take down an open source study resource for the Genki and Quartet workbooks.
JavaScript	WP. Compilation of sources/refs
KOSA	KOSA claims to make kids safer, but it’s really a dangerous censorship bill that would give the U.S. government unprecedented control over the internet. This would put youth in danger by preventing them from accessing potentially life-saving resources.
LBRY Foundation, Odysee	Community first decentralization & Odysee's plan to enable censorship by switching away from the opensource LBRY network.
LG	LG discontinued its LG Bluetooth Remote app (including plugins such as "btc4") making it non-public on the Play Store and making Bluetooth controllable devices (like for example the CM2630B) half as useful, without even publishing neither the protocol used to control such devices nor the source code of the app.
Lowe's	Lowe's uses flock cameras and other AI powered cameras to collect data and build a profile on "prospective, current, or former Lowe's customers". Their cameras point away from their stores.
McDonald's/Taylor	McDonald's US mandates which ice cream machine has to be used by franchise licensees. The company that makes these machines uses deliberately obfuscated error codes to force restaurant owners to use their expensive tech service to fix them and reset the machines. The company makes more money from these "repairs" support than with actual sales. Not strictly end consumer, but the pattern warrants documenting imo. A similar problem exists with Doremi (Dolby) cinema projectors where their DRM leads to a ridiculous number of actions breaking the so-called "marriage" (projector-media block unity), requiring a costly technician to reset it. This one needs sources researched, though, as I don't have one on hand.
Mitsubishi Motors	Mitsubishi Motors has a rich history of consumer protection, compliance issues and privacy breaches. These include concealing safety defects, falsifying fuel economy data, and being fined for false advertising. Following the trend of subscription services for the automotive industry, Mitsubishi paywalls built-in features including remote start, SOS, collision detection, and car tracking through its app Mitsubishi Connect subscription service.	[1] [2] [3] [4][5]
Multiple	Several legal cases involving forced arbitration in some manner; many of these relate to other anticonsumer practices, such as when Wells Fargo illegally opened up ~3.5M fake checking and credit accounts in customers' names. Highly advised to deeply scrub for supplementary sources.
MuseGroup (MuseSounds)	Releasing more and more subscription sound packs while previously released one-time purchase sound packs are full of bugs/issues and have gone without updates for sometimes over a year. They have also increased the price of one-time purchase packs by about 500% while still providing no additional or improved functionality. They also added unsolicited popups advertising their paid sound packs at startup of the open source MuseScore application, as well as buttons and commands for their cloud service to the home screen, which cannot be disabled. They previously ran into controversy when changing the privacy policy of Audacity and tried to add tracking. The closed-source MuseHub application (which is required to download the free sound packs) connects to tracking services with neither a real opt-in nor an opt-out option. Newer versions of MuseHub now seem to require an account to download free sound packs and sound effects, which previously was not the case. Muse Hub starts at every system launch by default and stays active in the background despite this not being required for its functionality. They also added proprietary parts to MuseScore (like the MuseSample), which is kept closed source. They also bought StaffPad and seem to have quietly ceased its development without publishing any statements.
Navdy, Harman International	Device discontinued and no updates, device can be used offline for 1 year until it stops working. https://www.reddit.com/r/navdy/
Netgear (internet networking equipment)	Almost every Netgear internet router requires the creation of a new account to function as a router, where the TOS includes an agreement to binding arbitration. Most if not all devices are locked into proprietary firmware with no option to change. Some automatic updates have reportedly cause loss of performance with option to revert to a previous version, "bricking" the device in some cases. Engages in anti-consumer practices, requiring a subscription for basic WiFi-router features such as parental controls. According to a blogpost by a senior employee, grew from "45% in 2016 to over 60% in 2019" of the US consumer router market. In 2025, Netgear is "being sued by TP-Link for a 'Smear Campaign' to Advance US Router Ban [of it's competitor TP-Link].	[62] [63] [64] [65]
Nothing	Nothing brings home-screen ads (can be disabled manually) and bloatware to its lower end models despite previously boasting about being bloatware free
OICA (European automotive lobby organisation)	The OICA recently pushed for the right to emit sounds from quiet electric cars to make them as loud as conventional cars with combustion engine and against stricter noise regulation in cities. The fake engine noises in question are specifically not for safety purposes, but for emotional effect for the driver. However, instead of playing the noises only inside for just the driver to hear, the noise is to be played on speakers on the exterior, thus affecting the general public. Noise pollution has long been known to have adverse health effects. [NOTE: Similar to environmental aspects, greenwashing etc., we will have to find a good angle for how this fits the wiki. I would say it does match the general theme of manufacturers deliberately making their products worse for minor financial gain and lobbies pushing against things that are in public interest.]
Persona (Age verification service)	Used by Discord to do age verification using facial 3d scans, which are transmitted to Persona servers. It has been revealed that the company has ties to Palantir and Peter Thiel.
Skystone Games	Boundary, a multiplayer online-only first-person shooter, got shut down just a year after its release by Skystone games, and its publishing rights relinquished, citing "ongoing delays and a lack of updates from the developer". Studio Surgical Scalpels (the developer) stated that the publisher decissions were "extremely sudden and unreasonable", and attempted to "regain the rights to boundary". The game has been offline for more than a year at the time of writing, and no refunds or communications to the userbase has been made by Skystone Games.
Sony, Sony Online Entertainment/Daybreak Game Company	Selling off SOE to the investment firm Columbus Nova, all games published by SOE were delisted without prior notice to consumers or developers, and licenses were revoked as well.
Superbox	Android TV box manufacturer Superbox remotely locks consumers' devices if they were sold below the manufacturer's minimum specified prices and asks consumers to contact the retailer when they complain. They are not the first to do something like this. Deye locked down inverters in the US that they suspected might be gray imports.
Twitch	Twitch has recently partnered with Persona to verify the ages of new affiliates before first payouts.
UP3 By Jawbone	Approximately 2011, Pioneering startup company from San Francisco, had revolutionary fitness trackers. In 2017 with no notice to customers they stole personal data and shut down app which in turn, bricked devices. Highly likely went bankrupt and sold to sister company to manipulate customer services and rights. Now owned by Aliph brands.
Vive	In 2022, Vive discontinued the original Vive Facial Tracker module a year after the original release, then released an updated model with proprietary firmware that blocked use on other 3rd party VR headset, while only allowing the new model to work with their new locked-down headset. The 2021 version of the face tracker's long term support was seemingly cut overnight without any software updates since 2021.
Web cookie	Wikipedia
WHMCS	Discontinuation of support and updates for WHMCS legacy “Owned” licenses, forcing users who want ongoing updates or technical support to switch to subscription licensing and pay recurring fees rather than continue with the original owned model. This change affects all holders of legacy owned licenses and alters the long-term terms under which those licenses were originally sold
Wheatstone Corporation	Wheatstone Corporation are a manufacturer of professional broadcast equipment, mainly audio consoles and interfaces that utilise their proprietary Wheatnet audio over IP protocol. Wheatstone restricts access to firmware updates, software configuration tools and software. You must open a support ticked in order for them to send you a download link to these software tools, they make it very difficult to access software required to make their hardware audio interfaces work, even stating they want proof of purchase (not just a licence key) before they will even give you the download link. Managing licences is also non-existent and you will need to contact support, and as such a fee is imposed.
Wireless Power Consortium	After monopolizing wireless charging market Qi turned from an open standard into a proprietary. Version 1.3 introduced "secure authentication between the transmitter and the receiver", i.e. in order to operate every charger must include an expensive proprietary chip licensed only to certified members. This results in increased development and manufacturing costs directly passed onto consumer. Version 2.2, unlike previous versions, "is available for WPC Members only".
Wolfgang Puck Bread Makers	Some of the bread makers have anti repair screws in them to prevent people from repairing them themselves. Needs more citations.
World Orb	World Network (Sam Altman/Open AI) scheme to collect biometric data on all people. Tied to cryptocurrency, AI schemes. Supposedly way for people to show they are human (run by the people who are trying to make a profit from AI).
Xcode support dropped for older MacBooks	Apple has discontinued support for up to date versions of Xcode iOS development on older MacBook devices (discovered on my MacBook Pro 2017, but I’m sure it applies to other old devices as well), resulting in not being able to use a perfectly capable machine for iOS app development without having to go through countless loopholes. 1) you cannot commit new updates without utilizing a third-party medium, 2) the warning and error compiler is out of date due to not being able to update to the latest version, which of course supports the latest iOS release, so you have to figure it out on your own like it’s the 80’s 3) you must commit and release a new TestFlight build (through [1] loophole) to do any testing instead of being able to simulate on your Mac or even a connected device 4) this all really stems from the fact that the new Xcode updates require the new MacOS version which is also discontinued for older MacBooks. This means 8 year old device is basically just useless for such applications.
Zhiyun	Like competing products from DJI, Zhiyun video gimbals require a Chinese smartphone app, internet access and an account to activate on first use.

List of themes not yet covered

Consumer Rights Wiki is not an encyclopedia.

• Before proposing or making a theme article, see if you can find an article that covers the topic on wikipedia, or some other reference. If you can, just use a reference to that.
• Check the list of theme articles Category:common terms, to be sure there isn't already an article on the topic, or one closely related. Sometimes a theme may be covered by generalizing an existing article.

Theme	Summary of Theme	Refs
Anti-rollback or ARB for device firmware	most recent example being Oneplus phone update introduces hardware anti-rollback but ain't exclusive to it. Also implemented by Samsung, DJI (link found from DJI) and likely many more.

List of companies doing the right thing

It would be helpful to include examples of companies doing the right thing, even if they aren't, strictly speaking, consumer products.

Company	Good deed	Refs
APSystems	After requests from users, the company released a firmware update that adds a local API to their EZ-1M solar micro inverter, allowing it to remain fully usable if the company ends support for the device
Concept2	Readily provides parts and diagrams. Exists under a Perpetual Purpose Trust.
Core Devices (from creator of Pebble Smartwatches)	Not strictly Core Devices, but when Pebble was sold to Fitbit, the servers remained online for some time, and the Pebble app was updated to allow the Rebble community project to take over some of the Pebble server-side functionality. All backers of the upcoming Pebble 2 series of watches were refunded in full, despite it being a crowd-funding campaign. Following Google's acquisition of Fitbit and after many years, Google released much of the Pebble Smart Watch source code on github (excluding proprietary libraries). Core Devices and Rebble replaced the usage of the proprietary libraries with open source alternatives, and released new Android and iOS apps, not only supporting the new core devices, but bringing updated support to legacy Pebble devices.
Fairphone	The new Fairphones (5th and 6th generation) are availible with stock android as well as e/os, which is a fork of lineage os and a european alternative cloud provider (murena) instead of google. This has many privacy features (app tracker blocker, tor network usage, and gps spoofing) availible in a few clicks. Also degoogle apps (microg, safetynet, ...) are preinstalled therefore it is w´possible to install everything also from playstore with an anonymous account. As e/os is a fork of lineage os and there is an official guide to flash the fairphone with e/os and is officially supported, flashing lineage os is very easy.
Home Assistant	Open-source smart home platform that provides local control, automation, and interoperability for a wide range of smart home devices. Provides support for many cloud devices after they're subject to discontinuation bricking.
Noctua	Extremely long support for old products and availability of upgrade kits
Numatic International	A UK based manufacture of commercial and consumer wet/dry floor cleaning products (vacuums, scrubbers, floor buffers) that provides a robust library of technical documents, parts breakdowns, data sheets and training for free on both new and existing products without the need to login, pay additional fees or be an approved repair facility.
Oral-B	When installing the Android App, there is no login, and the user is asked for analytics tracking consent.
Philips	Added files for replacement parts to Printables so you can 3D print parts for your Philips products
ratgdo	A garage door opener controller developed by Paul Wieland, allowing you to locally control it (namely Chamberlain openers that would otherwise require the MyQ app for smart home features).
Reticulum	Reticulum is an open-source, decentralized networking stack designed to communicate between practically any wireless device, even without internet. Its purpose is to provide fully anonymous end-to-end encrypted communication by default, especially in the age of government surveillance. The Reticulum network, protocol, and hardware are not tied any company in particular but were initially created by Github user 'markqvist'. Honorable mention to NomadNet, which is a network of nodes that serve webpages, similar to the internet, that communicate via Reticulum.
stevesgames.co.uk	Will never put ads or in-app purchases in their computer games and will make gamees available for free after securing the companys future.
Tektronix	Provided extensive product data on unsupported products to a museum, vintageTEK, and thus to tekwiki and the rest of the community.
Ulanzi	The company offers a tutorial on how users can mix their own fog juice to use with Ulanzi mini fog machines from readily available low-cost ingredients, whereas competitors sell proprietary fog juice at extortionate prices, refuse to release the formula and refuse to honour the warranty if users use anything but the OEM brand with their machines.

See Also

• Louis Rossmann - Video Directory
• Other Channels - Video Directory