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Good news for farmers: The FTC has finally sued John Deere over "unfair practices"

John Deere remotely disables valuable agricultural equipment stolen from Ukraine dealership

When you hear about right to repair and the repair restrictions companies place on their products, one company that comes to mind is John Deere (or Deere & Company). John Deere has been at the center of criticism due to how the agricultural machinery giant restricts access to repair tools and software.

Today, farmers may be pleased to hear that the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) and attorneys from Illinois and Minnesota have sued Deere & Company (Deere) over what the FTC calls "unfair practices" that have driven up equipment repair costs for farmers.

In the complaint filed by the FTC, the agency had this to say about Deere's restrictions on repair parts while arguing that the company is a monopoly:

For decades, Defendant Deere & Company, a manufacturer of large agricultural equipment including tractors and combines, has throttled the ability of farmers and independent repair providers (“IRPs”) to repair Deere equipment, leaving farmers wholly reliant upon Deere's network of authorized dealers (“Deere dealers”) for many key repairs.

Regarding the monopoly situation, the plaintiffs argue that Deere is a monopoly for "fully functional repair tools" capable of enabling all repairs on Deere equipment. Access to these repair tools is managed through the Service ADVISOR software, which only authorized dealers can use.

There is a version of ADVISOR available to farmers (Customer Service ADVISOR), but it doesn't have the full functionality of the ADVISOR that dealers have access to. The FTC spoke on the effects of these restrictions, saying:

Deere's unlawful business practices have inflated farmers' repair costs and degraded farmers' ability to obtain timely repairs, which is especially critical in times of planting and harvesting.

When CNBC contacted Deere about this lawsuit for a comment, they did not respond. CNBC also noted that the company's shares fell less than 1%.

Deere is not the only company opposed to right to repair. In the past, right to repair advocates have accused Apple of designing their products in a way that limits customers' ability to repair their devices, like using unique screws and locking down parts to the logic board with software so that features like True Tone and FaceID don't work if their supporting components are replaced without authorization from Apple.

In 2017, Apple even argued that its anti-repair behavior was justified because users could hurt themselves when attempting a repair. The Cupertino giant has improved a lot since then, and you can now buy iPhone 16 parts at its self-service repair store. It even backed Biden's right to repair legislation in 2023.

Still on the topic of repairability, Microsoft has expanded its Xbox repair program to include the uBreakiFix chain of repair shops for the Series X and S.

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