On: AMD PSB Vendor Locks EPYC CPUs for Enhanced Securi...

[shakna]

> Do consumer laws apply to businesses in Australia? Because afaik, in the EU regretfully a lot of laws that protect consumers against abuse from vendors, do not apply to B2B/enterprise transactions.

Yes. Consumer protections apply to everyone. Within Australia, those protections are considered the "bare minimum" that must be implemented by every business, across the board.

Certain industries have other protections they must implement atop of those.

[elmo2you → shakna]

If that's true, and I have to admit that's a big surprise for me, then I'm glad to hear that. At least for Australia.

I'm not even sure if the following is uniform across the EU, but I have always assumed (maybe even been told) that it is. Where I come from (The Netherlands), (afaik) when you do business with another business then consumer protection laws don't apply.

The rational appears to be that as a business you don't need the same kind of protection as a consumer. It's considered the risk of doing business, and companies suing each other in court (e.g. for fraud) is considered to be less unbalanced than it would be for private individual (consumer) against a company, in terms of (financial/legal) means.

In reality there probably are different (less savory) historical reasons behind it too, maybe even the preservation of the "natural power distribution" (euphemism for the already wealthy to stay that way) between smaller and larger businesses. That's at least how I have heard it being justified politically. Meanwhile, good luck suing a large company if you're a smaller business yourself. Either way, as I already implied, I think that's more or less by design.

Great if Australia is more egalitarian on that subject. If not for all of nature tring to kill me at every second there, I'd seriously consider immigrating over this xD

[shakna → elmo2you]

There is some nuance with the Australian laws, but for the most part, the protections exist: [0]

When you buy goods or services for your business which are:

+ under $40,000

+ over $40,000 and normally bought for personal, domestic or household use or consumption

+ vehicles and trailers used mainly to transport goods on public roads

your business will be considered a consumer and entitled to certain remedies under the consumer guarantees if something goes wrong.

---

As an EPYC CPU doesn't cost more than $40,000 per unit (closer to $8,000 from what I've found), it would fall under the guarantees.

Australian laws are still skewed in favour of the larger companies, but one place where the law tends not to fall down is consumer protections.

[0] https://www.accc.gov.au/business/business-rights-protections...