OT: rooting vs. warranty in Israel? [Was: Linux with Android MTP]

[Oleg Goldshmidt]

Shlomo Solomon <shlomo.solomon at gmail.com> writes:

> 4 - Speaking of rooting, I never understood why this voids the
> warranty. I'm not a lawyer but this needs to be challenged in court.

IANAL, either, but I would be interested to know what the *statutory*
warranty in Israel is. I googled and even searched www.consumers.org.il
specifically, but didn't find anything... :-( Ponters, anyone?

For a non-lawyery explanation read on, or stop here.

The "rooting voids warranty" clause that just about every manufacturer
and provider (the party who you really deal with in most cases, I
suppose) has does not have a leg to stand on in many
jurisdictions. Every manufacturer/provider will tell you that your
warranty is void if you do something 'unauthorized', but what they mean
is their *voluntary* warranty. They will conveniently forget to even
mention that there is also a statutory warranty. Oft-mentioned is, e.g.,
the EU Directive 1999/44/CE that says that to void a statutory consumer
warranty the manufacturer/provider must *prove* that the user's actions
directly caused the fault. In most cases this is far more
difficult/expensive for the company than just repairing or replacing the
device. So is defending the position in a small claims court.

The usual advice is to 1) not volunteer infomation about rooting - if
you bricked the device they might be able to figure it out, but they are
unlikely to go through the trouble (and then prove that this was the
root cause of the problem) rather than just reflash the ROM; 2) make it
clear that you know your rights w.r.t. statutory warranties - the
manufacturer/provider takes a calculated chance that most people
don't. #2 is advisable even without #1.

I think that in the US there also exists a Warranty Act that says that
the manufacturer/seller must prove the fault was caused by the
consumer. The actual applicable statute probably depends on the state.

So, can anyone point to a source that spells out the Israeli law?   

> The last time I read a phone warranty I seem to remember that it
> referred to the warranty being voided if you install unauthorized
> software. But who defines what is unauthorized? Google? There are
> tons of apps on Google Play that require root so does that imply that
> rooting is allowed?

You deal with Google, the manufacturer (e.g., Samsung), and the provider
or seller whom you actually got your phone from. They all may have
different *voluntary* warranties that may even contradict each other.

Samsung is a curious case, by the way. It was widely reported that they
refused to repair Vodafone-branded Galaxies because Vodafone (not
customer!) installed 'custom firmware' on them. On top of that, Steve
Kondik (a.k.a. 'Cyanogen') was, until recently, employed by Samsung to
work on CyanogenMod. The irony...

By the way, I don't see anything specifically about rooting in

http://www.samsung.com/il/support/warranty/warrantyInformation.do

[Hebrew], but IANAL.

-- 
Oleg Goldshmidt | pub at goldshmidt.org