#Socialites, check this out! The federal government is just as sick and tired as us customers when it comes to McDonald’s and their constantly broken ice cream machines! The Feds are siding with customers and franchise owners in the battle to fix the well-known faulty machines.
RELATED: McDonald’s Under FTC Investigation Due To Broken Ice Cream Machines
According to Fox Business, the federal government wants to make it legal for McDonald’s franchise owners to use a third-party hacking device to repair constantly broken ice cream machines. The decision arrived after the fast-food giant was sued because they wouldn’t allow franchisees to fix their machines on their own.
The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) and the antitrust unit of the Department of Justice (DOJ) have joined forces in requesting that the U.S. Copyright Office approve an exemption to copyright law that would allow franchise owners the right to repair “commercial and industrial equipment.”
According to a filing submitted on Thursday (March 14), by not allowing franchise owners the right to hire third-party repair companies limits competition and creates more costly repairs in the long run. During the deliberations seeking the exemption to Section 1201 of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) — a law that makes it difficult for franchise owners to do their own repairs or hire a third-party repair technician — the FTC and DOJ estimated that the broken-down McDonald’s ice cream machines cost franchise owners nearly $625 in sales per day.
In their joint letter to the U.S. Copyright Office, the agencies said, “In the Agencies’ view, renewing and expanding repair-related exemptions would promote competition in markets for replacement parts, repair, and maintenance services, as well as facilitate competition in markets for repairable products. Soft serve equipment breakdowns can lead to $625 per day loss of sales … there are long wait times for authorizer repairs, and … a licensed repair technician charges over $300 per 15 minutes.”
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Fox Business also reports that in 2021, the FTC began cycling through complaints by consumers and McDonald’s franchise owners, who claimed they were losing tons of money on ice cream machines that were constantly breaking down and left sitting for authorized technicians to come and repair.
In 2022, McDonald’s was then sued by an ice cream repair company for $900 million after the fast food giant prohibited franchise owners from using a device from the repair company, which allowed technicians and owners to easily fix the faulty ice cream machines.
The product allowed franchise owners to troubleshoot their problems with the company digitally using Wi-Fi, versus having to wait for an authorized fix by Taylor, the the restaurant equipment company that exclusively makes McDonald’s ice cream machines. McDonald’s alleged that the device violated the machine’s warranty and claimed it could cause “serious human injury.”
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