572
Roku and TCL are being sued for allegedly bricking smart TVs with bad updates
(www.androidauthority.com)
this post was submitted on 04 May 2026
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I knew this was coming at some point. Forced updates need to be illegal, or allow users to roll back updates at their discretion.
When you buy something, the seller cannot enter your house without permission and break it. Legal action is going to spread - Hisense should be next, they did the same thing to me.
I would love forced support for downgrade. Especially with reverse engineering and jailbreaking
You fail to mention, to buy that item you had to sign away your right to sue, and instead bring any dispute to binding arbitration of their choosing. Scotus endorsed this officially over a decade back, but it's been standard since around 2001, also for low wage employment contracts.
That is illegal in the EU. TOS doesn't have the power to take away rights. It is nothing more than guidelines.
The part that hasn't been litigated is unilaterally modifying the agreement and whether you separately own the TV apart from the software covered by the click-wrap contact of adhesion.
I think a court would decide you have the right to use the TV without the software if you disagree with the terms. Except they currently give you no way to do that.
Further, it should be illegal to require an update that updates the terms, since the manufacturer effectively can force you to agree to new terms while holding your TV hostage.
Contract rights have a limit, especially with TOS agreements that are not negotiable.
Yeah part of the terms are always that they can change the terms with no notice. Also that any promises anyone gives you from the company that aren't from like a higher up and in writing are worth nothing.
Yes, but a) not all terms are legally enforceable in all situations, and b) that enforceability has not to my knowledge been tested for situations where the software fully disabled the hardware unless the new software and terms are accepted.
It used to be when one part of a contract was illegal the entire thing was thrown out. Not any longer, and that's why we now have 100 pages of legalese rather than a single one.
As to your hypothetical, I wouldn't expect the federal courts in the US to side against the industrialists. The Federalist Society controls the courts, and are now being guided by the gangsters that seized our government and are trying to permanently affix themselves in absolute power, and those judges believe those efforts will succeed.
They think the republic is already dead. Don't expect anything good from them.