Now the US Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has sent warning letters to eight companies about their warranty practices, including ASRock, Gigabyte and Zotac, voicing concerns that stickers used by these manufacturers violate the Magnuson-Moss Warranty Act (via The Verge)

The Magnuson-Moss Warranty Act was brought into effect in 1975 and was created to prevent manufacturers from using disclaimers on warranties in an unfair or misleading manner.

The FTC deems this sort of wording—alongside the warning stickers attached to multiple companies’ products—as hindering the consumer’s ability to perform routine maintenance and repairs. The US government agency has urged each company in its letter to review promotional and warranty materials to ensure that they do not “state or imply that warranty coverage is conditioned on the use of specific parts or services.”

Here’s the bottom line according to the iFixit article. Under US law, these are the actions that do not void your warranty:

• Modifications or improvements (like painting the case of a device or upgrading its software), as long as those improvements don’t damage the product
• Performing an upgrade that requires opening the device (like adding more RAM, or a bigger hard drive), as long as you don’t damage the product while opening it
• Repairs to fix accidental damage (like a broken screen), so long as the repair doesn’t damage other components
• Casual disassembly and tinkering for curiosity’s sake, as long as you don’t break anything in the device

Articles:

• https://www.ifixit.com/News/10016/warranty-void-if-removed-stickers
• https://www.pcgamer.com/hardware/ftc-fires-out-warnings-to-asrock-gigabyte-and-zotac-over-warranty-void-if-removed-stickers-in-violation-of-us-law/