Boing Boing69%
FTC forces John Deere to share repair tools 50%
By Séamus Bellamy74%
7/10/2026, 1:09:00 PM
BS Summary: This article contains 3 faulty reasoning types, including Biased Writer Voice and Negativity Bias, with Framing Effect as the most egregious example at 17% saturation with 99 hits. Analysis detected 219 faulty-reasoning hits from 581 analyzed words, generating a BS Score of 52.1% and a BS Rank of 50% (7,013 of 13,931 articles). This article is better (less manipulative) than 50.30% of the article peer group.
John Deere (promotional image)
For a long while now, farmers using John Deere tractors to plow their fields have been getting plowed by John Deere.
The storied heavy equipment company decided that selling farmers their hardware to help them in their hard work wasn't making them quite enough.
Modern tractors live and die on the software that controls their many systems, just like your car or home computer.
And, like so much software we use daily, the programs that make a tractor go BUUURRRRR don't belong to its owner: it's licensed by John Deere for the operator to use.
In short, Johnny D decided to make repairing their hardware anywhere but an authorized John Deere dealer as difficult as possible.
It also controlled how customers used its tools, copyrighted its software so only authorized parties (folks who work for the company, or pay for the privilege) could tinker with it, and cornered the market on repair and maintenance.
Why, that almost sounds like a monopoly… because it was.
But that's a-gonna change, thanks to a decision made by the FTC and a number of States , earlier this week.
For the next 10 years, Deere must give farmers and independent repair shops the same repair resources its dealers get.
The deal resolves a lawsuit accusing Deere of blocking repairs by farmers and independent shops.
FTC Bureau of Competition Director Daniel Guarnera said:
"Today's settlement enables farmers to do what they've done for generations — fix their own tractors and other farm equipment — without having to pay an authorized John Deere dealer to do it for them."
He added that the settlement will lower costs for farmers, and that the FTC will keep fighting repair restrictions.
So, for the next decade farmers and the technicians they choose will have the right to clear fault codes, restore a tractor out of limp mode, install new hardware, and update the software that keeps it humming along.
And this is crazy: John Deere hardware owners can read the repair and maintenance manuals, once the sole territory of the company's anointed wrench monkeys.
John Deere settles right-to-repair lawsuit for $99 million
John Deere must face right-to-repair lawsuit, rules court
FTC finally investigates John Deere's creepy repair restriction scheme
Meta has patented a wearable that listens to you all day and guesses how you feel.
As 404 Media reports, the device would continuously record audio and surroundings, then use...
READ THE REST
According to IP over Avian Carriers, the internet's standards body once published a straight-faced proposal "to carry Internet Protocol (IP) traffic by birds such as homing pigeons."
RFC 1149, written...
READ THE REST
Oh, Lordy, my wallet: I'm not one to invest in, or generally write about, crowdfunded hardware.
I've been burned one too many times.
But a decidedly old-school Personal Digital Assistant...
READ THE REST
Disclosure: Boing Boing earns a commission on purchases made through links in this post.
TL;DR: Work on your self-growth, boost your professional skills, and become a trivia night menace...
READ THE REST
Disclosure: Boing Boing earns a commission on purchases made through links in this post.
TL;DR: New Costco Gold Star Members who enroll in auto-renewal can receive a $50 Digital Costco Shop...
READ THE REST
Disclosure: Boing Boing earns a commission on purchases made through links in this post.
TL;DR: 1min.AI bundles GPT-4o, Claude, Gemini, and a pile of other AI tools into one lifetime subscription...
READ THE REST
Analysis
Hover over highlighted words in the article to view the associated bias or fallacy analysis.