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 and other channels video directory for a good collections 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
194 Online Marketing Services (incl. Google, Microsoft, Meta)	Survey shows that more than half of websites set marketing cookies despite users opting out via Do Not Track header, Browser add-ons or by declining cookie banners. Google calles it a "misunderstanding of how their products work", Meta comments that according to the law an opt-out only prohibits selling of the data, not collecting it.
8Player	In early March, 2026, the Apple TV application called 8Player began displaying a notice informing users who had already paid for the app, that the app would not continue to function unless they agreed to an ongoing subscription. The text of the notice says the following: Thank you for being a valued 8player user. To keep improving the app and delivering new features, 8player is moving to a subscription model. You can continue using the full version at no cost until April 15, 2026. After that, activate the subscription in the app to keep full access. Your existing features will remain available, and no action is needed today. Thank you for supporting 8player over the years. File:8player-subscription-model-notice.png
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.
Acer	Removed Predator/Nitro Sense Applications for laptops from their support sites somewhere in early March 2026 (Looking at wayback machine snapshots). The application is required by the laptops to be able to toggle "Turbo" mode, which applies overclocks and boosts cooling. Additionally, recent Windows update(s) (KB5083769/KB5082417) have broken the application, making users unable to use it even if you were able to install it.
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	Wikipedia entry
Apotheka	Personal ID codes, purchase information and contact details of almost half of Estonian citizens and residents have been compromised in a mass data breach of the IT system operated by Allium UPI, a firm dealing with pharmacy and hospital products.
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.
Apple / Visa	Apple & Visa have known about a vulnerability in their payment processing systems regarding transit systems since 2021 hand have done nothing to prevent scams from exploiting the vulnerability. Apple blames Visa for the vulnerability, and Visa simply says if you see it happen on your account then you can dispute the charge, and they'll give you your money back... but this requires you to actually notice that you've been scammed in this way, which could be pretty easy to miss unless you are checking your bank statements regularly.
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.
ASUS (ROG)	Releases bios updates via windows executable, meaning that you can't update your bios to the latest version to amend a security vulnerability or fix an issue unless you're running microsoft windows. The windows executable simply extracts a binary file, that you can drop on a thumb drive. This could be easily done via direct download to support other operating systems.
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.
AutoAuth	AutoAuth represents a significant shift toward "repair-by-subscription," where owning a vehicle no longer guarantees the right to maintain it. By placing a digital firewall between the owner and the car’s computer, AutoAuth forces independent shops and DIY enthusiasts to pay recurring access fees and register their personal data with a third-party gatekeeper just to perform basic maintenance, such as electronic parking brake retractions or oil life resets.
Bayer	Wikipedia. See Monsanto
Benjamin	Offerwall phone app that pays users money for various tasks- such as watching ads, or downloading and using software. After years of user satisfaction, in late 2025, the company first put a 2 month moratorium on users' ability to withdraw their earned money, then rolled out a massive wave of enshittification features, the most egregious of which, is a "withdrawl queue", where withdrawing your earnings is placed into a queue with no visible progress. No days, no queue tracker, many members have been waiting over 3 months for their withdrawls to be processed, on a feature listed as "instant withdrawl". Various policies also implemented that would completely void a user's earned money, mainly inactivity but also many baseless random user bans (many of which were reversed). There are hundreds of frustrated user testimonials on reddit (https://www.reddit.com/r/benjaminone/).
Berlin	City of Berlin installs security cameras that alerts authorities about people who are "loitering without reason".
Better Business Bureau (BBB)	Users who have been wronged and even scammed by companies have recently started reporting that the BBB has ignored, rejected, misclassified, closed prematurely or taken down their valid, BBB compliant, complaints for no apparent reason. Attempts to remedy the situation often result in unanswered/ignored emails and ghosting. Companies with large percentages of unresolved complaints often get an A+ rating (which basically contradicts the BBB's own guidelines). This is especially true when it comes to paying BBB member companies, but is often also the case with non member companies. A Redditors explained that a company can easily buy an A+ BBB rating by paying the BBB or by paying a lawyer to threaten to sue the BBB for defamation.
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.
Blackview	Blackview, a technology brand that originally specialized in rugged outdoor phones more info at "About us" Certain Phones have been hit with advertisements from the App called "System message" which is baked in the OS, "Allow Notification dots" can be disabled however "All System message notifications" and neither "Push" notifications cannot be disabled by the user. The App cannot be disabled nor uninstalled, it can be forced stopped and set the battery restriction option to "restricted". I SolidSnakePliskin creating this entry have seen this happen firsthand on 1st April 2026 on my Blackview Model Number: N6000 (EEA) Purchased on Amazon Italy. OS Details: Android Version 13 (Security Update November 5, 2025) & DokeOS 3.1. Further More other Reddit users complaining here.
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. Its legal docs (ToS, PP, CG) need JS to be viewed by humans, however this seems more of an oversight than deliberate
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
Chuwi	Misleading consumers by falsifying the specsheet of one of their latest laptops, and repeatedly threatened one of the online publications that wrote an article of their alleged misdeeds.
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).
DeviantArt	DeviantArt launched in 2000 and quickly became a household name among digital artists. But in 2017 WiX bought the website and in 2022 had made all art on it's site liable to be training data by default. They then back peddled and then set all art to noai by default. Now they are moving basic functions to be behind their paywall. Ones that were free.
DotPe cyber-sec negligence	In 2024, an Indian company that provides digital services to food-chains got trivially hacked/cracked, allowing anyone to get customer data and company revenue-stats across many countries
Digital Europe (lobby organization consisting of Microsoft, Google, Amazon, and Meta)	Group lobbied to keep datacenter emissions secret from consumers via confidentiality clause that was adopted almost verbatim by the Eurpean Comission, intentionally keeping consumers in the dark about the environmental impact of the products they use.
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.
Ericcson	Data Breach March 2026
FBI	FBI buys location data of US citizens
Foxconn	Foxconn is an electronics manufacturer with various human rights violations on it's record. They've also convinced the government to use eminent domain to take people's property to build factories, that never end up using the factories.
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.
GM	GM originally released the EV1 in 1996 on a lease program, and then instead of selling the much loved used/leased vehicles to consumers, they decided to crush the grand majority of them. Very few surviving examples can be found today, with most in private collections or at universities. Because it was seen as a failure to major auto manufacturers, It would take over a decade before another EV was produced in the United States.
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 (Android)	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 GrapheneOS, 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 (see Forced 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?
Google Photos	Google Makes it more difficult to manage photos within your google drive account through third party applications, including open source software running on linux. This makes it incredibly frustrating to clear space in google drive if you've exceeded the space limits.
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.
Honda	moved the garage door opener from a button on the mirror to a paywall subscription service
Hyundai (BlueLink)	Hyundai ads in-car advertisements for subscription services, while you're driving, after telling you not to look at the screen while driving. The advertisement is a full page of text, that you can't either enable or disable while you're driving. Your only options are to (A) select later, to delay the ad for another driving session, or (2) Pull over and park your car so you can (C) enable the feature at $10/mo or (iii) dig through settings menus to figure out how to disable the message permanently (which will probably only be actually permanent until the battery in the car dies). BlueLink appears to be marketing lingo for their cell-phone-linked remote start/stop, lock/unlock, and climate control features. The only feature that should actually need a cellular subscription appears to be stolen vehicle recovery.
Indonesia	Banning Social Media for children under 16
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.
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.
Kangaroo	A home security camera company that locks local hardware features behind software subscriptions and paywalls that ultimately could work without external service. Access to local storage playback via the app is locked behind a paywall; see reviews. "cooldown" periods provide a risk to security as motion detection does not activate until after a fixed period of time on no-subscription plans with clips that only capture 12 seconds of recording, this was not always the case.
Kindle	Kindle is removing support for pre-2012 devices. Text excerpt of email received by a user: "If you deregister or factory reset these devices, you will not be able to re-register or use these devices in any way." Kindle
Klarna	A German consumer rights association reports that payment provider Klarna requests access to users' bank accounts for payment purposes, but instead of just initiating transactions as the user expects, it also scans the complete list of transactions on the user's bank account for advertising purposes and also forwards that data to third parties. Klarna also faces criticism for encouraging debt by offering "buy now, pay later" schemes.
Kohls	There is no option to delete your account on their website
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.
LexisNexis	Data breach March 2026
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.
Marquis	Data Breach March 2026
Meta and YouTube	In a recent trial Meta and Google were found liable for making there social media platforms addictive and harmful
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.
Microsoft	Microsoft's Android keyboard app SwiftKey set to make it impossible to backup user data without a Microsoft Account, backups must be stored in Microsoft cloud
Microsoft	Locked the developers of Windscribe, Veracrypt, and, Wireguard out of their accounts
Microsoft Rewards	Used to be a good program, but over the last few years they've implemented a number of anti-user policies including extensive cool-downs for earning points on Bing, and making it more difficult to redeem points. There are multiple reports on r/microsoftrewards of people getting banned or restricted when they have over $100 worth of points that they are trying to redeem. They've also removed points opportunities that used to be interesting and engaging.
Minut	Minute sells sensors and alarms. They released an alarm (Point) on kickstarter that long after release got a firmware update adding forced subscription if more than one person wanted to use the alarm.
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.
NationStates	Data Breach March 2026
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/
Navia	Data Breach March 2026
Netgear (internet networking equipment)	Almost every Netgear internet router requires the creation of a new account to function as a router (see Forced account), 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].
Nexi S.p.A.	Nexi is a payment services provider based in Italy, which has been used by the Free Software Foundation Europe (FSFE) for ~ 15 years. They have allegedly been asking FSFE for personal information of FSFE executives and supporters and have recently cancelled their contract with FSFE.
Odido Netherlands B.V.	Odido is an internet service provider in the Netherlands with a 10-15% market share [79]. On the 3rd of March 2026 a user reported that his Odido Zyxel EX5601-T1 router was (illegally) sending analytics data to a Turkish AI-company [80]. The user reported on the 8th of March 2026 that the router silently stopped sending this data with no formal mention/patch from Odido. The user reported on the poor security of the router and that the analytics data contained the unencrypted names of local networks, the names of devices connected to these networks, and MAC-addresses. The poor security of Odido's routers follows a massive data leak of 6.2 million customers' full legal names, phone numbers, emails, bank account numbers, passport numbers and more [81].
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.]
Oracle	Similarly to Tencent, this corp is behind many other companies, so it has a lot of power over users. Also, their CEO is very petty about letting go the JavaScript trademark
Pearl Abyss	Crimson Desert engaged in hardware gatekeeping by purposely locking out support for Intel GPUs. Their response when people asked what was going on was, “Get a refund.” They failed to mention in their hardware requirements that Intel GPUs were not supported. Intel also reached out to Pearl Abyss over the course of Crimson Desert’s development to offer support but was ignored. Pearl Abyss has now backpedaled after public backlash and says they will offer Intel GPU support.	[1] [2] [3] [4]
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.
Proton	Proton helped FBI unmask anonymous "Stop Cop City" protestor
Regus	A flexible office / workplace provider for freelancers, contractors, small businesses, etc. This is specifically for their Virtual Office service. I am sure they apply these same predatory and deceptive tactics with the rest of their services as well. Locks you into a contract for virtual services that they may terminate at any time. You can too only if you follow very specific and exaggerated terms. They will bill you for the entire agreement even with it terminated. You lose access to the services immediately upon termination but are forced to pay for the rest of the agreement. They are predatory with agreements and will not allow you to break them and will charge you for the entire thing regardless of what happens. Forced arbitration. Force you to waive any right to class action lawsuits. Contract comes with terms hidden in their "house rules" document, automatically opting the user into services they did not knowingly agree to, by default. These services are NOT included in the original contract in any way except through the referencing to other documents like the "Terms of Service" and "House Rules", not disclosed ahead of time. They clearly show a lower price and do not clearly show any of the additional services you unknowingly opt into. They lead you into a low price to get the agreement signed. Once signed, you cannot escape or get out with their terms. You find out later that they've made you agree to additional services by default. They require YOU to jump through hoops to opt out of those services, and they bury the information to do it. They have predatory auto-renewals for the contracts that are typically months to years long, with many being sold into higher 1 year+ contracts for "savings" and "discounts". These auto-renewals cannot be canceled without 3 MONTHS notice! If it renews, you are locked into another term which you will be forced to pay in full even if you terminate. This is all for VIRTUAL office services that cost nothing to provide or remove. A lot of deceptive patterns including, but not limited to: Comparison prevention, hidden costs, hidden subscription, obstruction.	Terms of Service House Rules Help Page - terminate anytime but pay everything
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.
Spectora	Spectora is a home inspection software used by many home inspectors, a very important portion of the home buying process. Spectora has announced they intend to insert ads April 7th. The ads look like the home inspector (a independent entity) is recommending outside services. Spectora has also purchased other home inspection platform HomeGauge on April 4th. With Fixle being in the purchese which is the ad network they now own. There are also allegations (have not been proven) of sale of the inspection data (something that remains confidential with client controlling confidentiality) to insurance companies, and Home Lenders. Causing increased rates on historical inspection data even when those things could be a condition to close on the home.
Starbucks	Data Breach affecting employees March 2026
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.
Symantec	Product: Norton Internet Security. This one might be tough to document, because it's been slowly going on for the past 15 years. Norton used to offer a great internet security package with a ton of good and useful services for a decent price. Unfortunately, slowly over the years, they've gone further and further down the rabbit hole of charging more money for fewer and fewer features, and then locking some of those features behind even more paywalls and micro-transactions.
Telus	Data Breach March 2026
TCL	WP. Misleading advertising. Software and firmware full of bugs (such as screens "randomly" turning off). Taking years to upgrade Android phones, and lying about the expected dates. Refusing to comply with Google policies and some gov regulations
TriZetto	Data Breach March 2026
Universal Audio	Product: UAD (Volt) Audio Interfaces Universal Audio (UAD) requires users to create an account and sign in to their software to use their audio interfaces–this is a necessary step and without it the interfaces are unusable.
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.
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.
White House	The White House made a news app, but this app tracks your location every 4.5 minutes through third-party OneSignal
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
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".
Wizards of the Coast	Wizards of the Coast (WotC) seems to be positioning itself to move away from publishing physical books that last forever in favor of pushing digital-only sales and micro-transactions of content and subscriptions. They attempted to amend the OGL (Open Game License) to include language that would require third party authors of D&D content to give up rights to their own content, so WotC can sell it to consumers without crediting the original authors. Notably, as a direct response to these anti-consumer activities and policies, a select few of the third party publishers have instead decided to come out with their own systems that are not beholden to WotC's whims. A couple of examples include Draw Steel and Daggerheart. An earlier conflict prompted Paizo to release their own version of the classic D20-based tabletop RPG, Pathfinder, when WotC started releasing the fourth edition of it's rule-set.
Wolfgang Puck	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).
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.
Car manufacturers replacing physical controls by touch-screens	This is increasingly common, and puts drivers at risk. Some corps pretend touchscreens are a "premium" or "modern" feature, but are typically cheaper for them
Content delivery network (CDN)	WP, see also Cloud (service). While helpful, they can infer the browsing history of millions of users across sites. The bigger their monopoly, the more cross-site tracking power they have. Even GDPR has been against using CDNs in some situations. Examples of CDN: CloudFront (see Amazon AWS), Cloudflare, Microsoft Azure, Fastly, etc...

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.
Framework	They have 10/10 repair score by iFixit site for most of their products. They also support right to repair themselves.
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.
ZSA	This company produces programmable ergonomic keyboards. They have 10/10 repair score by iFixit site for one of their keyboards . They also support right to repair themselves . They have their own web software to modify keyboard layout , but it's possible to download source code of your layout and compile and flash it yourself using their fork of the QMK . The flashing can be done with standard tools, without any signing and bootloader unlocking.

See Also

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