Strange Happenings In The World Of Warranties

Last week it was reported that Apple were refusing to service PCs that had been returned for warranty repair by smokers. Citing Californian regulation, Applye considered such equipment contaminated and representing a health hazard to the repair teams.

Hot on the heels of that development comes a report from Louisiana where a group of restaurants are challenging the warranty exclusions of a vendor and its reseller because of losses they suffered due to software flaws. The restaurants are claiming that the solution providers were negligent in providing a system that was vulnerable to hackers, causing the restaurants to suffer significant loss.

Writing in Channel Insider, Larry Welch states: “In 2008, the restaurants discovered the Romanian hackers had exploited a software vulnerability in the remote access application and were siphoning off credit card information. According to IDG News Service, the breach cost on restaurant more than $50,000 in remediating customer credit records, audits and security upgrades.”

The lawsuit asserts that the provider of the systems was aware of the flaw and should have taken steps to work around it or to have advised its reseller to take such steps. Its failure to do so resulted in the restaurant systems not meeting compliance standards for data security and credit card handling.

This challenge on the basis of what is ‘reasonable’ has been upheld in other jurisdictions, but not for such generic products. With growing pressure from Federal authorities for increased quality standards in software development, this lawsuit may provide an early warning of far more to come. And arguably the problems could multiply when software is delivered over the Cloud. Will providers be held responsible for ensuring that users are alerted to exposures that might make such applications unsuitable for certain purposes?

This seems to be a lawsuit worth watching. As does the success of Apple in redefining warranty obligations.