this post was submitted on 14 Nov 2025
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Boycotts✊📣

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Using your consumer power to refuse to feed the profits of adversaries of humanity. Marketplace baddies who cause disproportionate harm to the planet or people.

Who to boycott, why they are being boycotted (or why you personally boycott them), and how to boycott them (if it’s not obvious).

Also welcome: discussion on how to organize and track your boycotts. E.g. whether it’s a special tool or app, or whether it’s a series of text files to GREP.

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evenwicht@lemmy.sdf.org
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Boycott Canon and Xerox for surreptitious yellow tracker dots (lemmy.sdf.org)
submitted 6 days ago* (last edited 5 days ago) by evenwicht@lemmy.sdf.org to c/boycott@lemmy.sdf.org
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Most (if not all) color printer makers are printing unique tracking dots on every printed page. But some of them are transparent about it and disclose it to consumers.¹

In any case, in the mid-1980s Xerox and Canon developed the anti-consumer feature decades before it became known to the public in 2004. So certainly we can blame them for surreptitiously assaulting our privacy.

It’s the surreptitious element of this that is the most infuriating. Transparently disclosing the feature to consumers is the socially responsible approach because at least informed consumers know they are signing up for:

  • reduction of print quality
  • higher cost of consumables (more yellow consumption)
  • loss of privacy
  • inability to print a black document when yellow ink/toner is empty

Xerox and Canon should be boycotted not just for the anti-consumer feature but for concealing it.

¹ citation needed.. I don’t recall where I read that some printer makers are transparent about it. I would like to know which ones are transparent just from a standpoint of knowing where the integrity is.

Update- other threads on this topic:

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[–] evenwicht@lemmy.sdf.org -3 points 6 days ago* (last edited 6 days ago) (2 children)

Every manufactured color imaging device does this.

Citation needed. (edit: I’ve only seen hand-waving speculation that “they all do it”. Oki and Samsung printers have not been caught AFAIK, so I would like to see something concrete on those)

Printers got good enough a long time ago that you could make realistic money from them.

Try printing a note euro . It either won’t or it will mess it up.

These statements are contradictory. I have heard of the limitation of printers deliberately refusing to reproduce colors that exactly match that of currency. Is that a hoax? If not, then there is no need for stego.

I would love to have a printer that can create holograms.

It doesn’t affect print quality.

It does, obviously. You have unintended noise in the printout.

[–] Onomatopoeia@lemmy.cafe 3 points 6 days ago (1 children)

It's both, since the 90's. I worked in a print shop, the commercial copiers of the time (which are the same tech as printers) would copy a bill, but the colors would never be right, though photos were flawless.

I'm not providing a source - this was all well-known by the mid-90's, some of us were there and experimented to try to get around it.

The steg is for traceability, not to prevent duplication of currency. It's so you can show that a particular doc came from a specific printer. This has uses far beyond currency.

Not that I like it, it's just not news.

[–] evenwicht@lemmy.sdf.org 1 points 6 days ago* (last edited 6 days ago)

I’m not providing a source - this was all well-known by the mid-90’s,

The citation needed is not for what you’ve said here, but for the claim that ALL printers do it without exceptions, despite lack of regulations requiring them to do so.

some of us were there and experimented to try to get around it.

Did you witness any Oki printers using stego? Note Oki printers are no longer on the US market, but when they were I regarded them as the most ethical of all options. To date I’ve seen no one catch Oki doing stego.

[–] worhui@lemmy.world 2 points 6 days ago (1 children)

These statements are contradictory. I have heard of the limitation of printers deliberately refusing to reproduce colors that exactly match that of currency. Is that a hoax? If not, then there is no need for stego.

Over different years there were different methods implemented to stop counter-fitting. The color shifting is one of the methods I heard of.

it's been decades since I was doing research on printing. The features can all be disabled, but you have to get a bunch of government approval and sign a whole lot of documents to get permission to shut it off. Even then I had to have the manufacturer do it.

I just did a quick google to see what was modern

I looks like the program is voluntary and under the direction of the Central Bank Counterfeit Deterrence Group. Disabling the countermeasures fall under laws about possessing equipment that can be used for counterfeiting EU 2014/62. It's a criminal offense to posses equipment that can counterfeit banknotes.

My program advisor handled the government part of the paperwork.

It does, obviously. You have unintended noise in the printout.

Unless you are doing scientific analysis, it's hard to find much less measure. You know it's there, print a 'blank' page take a picture and upload an image of the dots.

[–] evenwicht@lemmy.sdf.org 1 points 6 days ago* (last edited 5 days ago)

It’s a criminal offense to posses equipment that can counterfeit banknotes.

I’ll have a look at that directive¹ when I get a chance but I have to wonder if it’s then illegal to write your own FOSS f/w for a printer which has no proactive measures -- which you would need to do in order to escape the tyranny of manufacturer ink shenanigans and anti-features.

The quality of most consumer printers is insufficient for counterfiets to begin with, but most certainly they aren’t going to handle the holograms.

¹ strange that it would be a directive considering the EU has exclusive competency over the euro.
(update)

Unless you are doing scientific analysis, it’s hard to find much less measure. You know it’s there, print a ‘blank’ page take a picture and upload an image of the dots.

The dots show up easily under a blacklight or blue LED. Which means if you are creating artwork for a blacklit party venue, the noise ruins the artwork.

Update

I had a look at EU Directive 2014/62. This seems to be the relavent bit:

Article 3 - Offences

  1. Member States shall take the necessary measures to ensure that the following conduct is punishable as a criminal offence, when committed intentionally:
    (a) any fraudulent making or altering of currency, whatever means are employed;
    (b) the fraudulent uttering of counterfeit currency;
    (c) the import, export, transport, receiving or obtaining of counterfeit currency with a view to uttering the same and with knowledge that it is counterfeit;
    (d) the fraudulent making, receiving, obtaining or possession of
    (i) instruments, articles, computer programs and data, and any other means peculiarly adapted for the counterfeiting or altering of currency; or
    (ii) security features, such as holograms, watermarks or other components of currency which serve to protect against counterfeiting.

I do not interpret anything there as requiring printer makers to pro-actively produce tracker dots.

Note the law thread is here.