Right to own

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The right to own is the right for consumers to be able to completely own their products. The Consumer Rights Wiki (CRW) believes that a consumer only owns their product if they have full control over it. Ownership is a key concept to consumer rights protection.

Extent of the right to own

As established, a consumer only owns their purchased product if they completely control it. Below are some categories of things companies can do to limit your ownership of the products you buy, how they work, and some solid examples of each.

Subscription-Only Products (Software as a Service, SaaS)

If control is revocable, the consumer does not own their product. A consumer does not own their product if they pay a subscription for continued use. A consumer does not own their product if it bricks itself when the company goes out of business or decides to discontinue production. Many software products which used to sell unlimited licenses to use and reinstall the software forever are now subscription only.

Examples: Adobe, Microsoft, IoT Devices that rely on servers and services outside your home, with or without subscriptions

Anti-Repair Design

A consumer does not own their product if they are unable to repair their device themselves due to the company going out of its way to make unauthorized repair impossible. This include things like the proprietary calibration software which Apple refuses to provide to third parties and which Apple Youtubers claim is a "feature to improve performance and security". This could also include devices made to throw away when a wear component, such as batteries, breaks after a few years, and cannot be repaired, a perfect example being Airpods.

Poor Security

A consumer does not truly own their product if poor security allows unauthorized actors to use the product without permission. Any of these problems will reduce the degree to which consumers own their products and harm their right to own. Before making any purchase, consider how much of it is actually yours.

An example of this is car entry systems, many of which did not use rolling code key systems and can be abused by devices like the Flipper Zero, a commonly available pentesting toy.