FCC

All That Ugly FCC Text Won’t Be Required On Your Next Flagship

The new rules say that under the circumstance that a label causes damage or requires an expensive technique to plaster on, manufacturers can use alternative methods of displaying the necessary information. The change is similar to a new E-Label Act, which gives companies the flexibility to use digital stamps instead of physically etching labels onto hardware. Senators Deb Fischer and Jay Rockefeller, who introduced the E-Label Act, argued that the new digital stamp would allow manufacturers to save money, and by extension allow consumers to save money, too.

                      Users must be able to access the information without requiring special access codes or permissions and, in all cases the information must be accessible in no more than three steps in a device’s menu, the FCCs new guidelines say.

The FCC’s new method would be very similar the E-Label Act, and require companies to put a label inside of a phone’s settings. Meanwhile, a device’s user manual most also indicate where to find this label, otherwise a manufacturer must say on its website where to find this information. It’s a much better solution than what we see now on the back of the majority of devices today.