Motorola is getting away with zero OS updates thanks to regulatory loophole

The European Commission introduced a variety of regulations for electronics that went into effect last year. One of these rules forces manufacturers to up their game when it comes to software updates. Unfortunately, it sounds like the EU’s own wording has enabled brands like Motorola to actually offer phones with disappointing update policies.

Motorola has launched phones in Europe, such as the Moto G17, which offer five years of security updates but no Android OS upgrades. This sounds sketchy, but IT Daily reported late last year that this could be due to the EU’s own wording of the regulation.

The relevant bit of the EU’s regulation reads as follows:

Operating system updates: from the date of end of placement on the market to at least 5 years after that date, manufacturers, importers or authorised representatives shall, if they provide security updates, corrective updates or functionality updates to an operating system, make such updates available at no cost for all units of a product model with the same operating system;

The key word above seems to be “if.” If a company provides any security patches, fixes, or feature updates to a phone, “such” updates need to be available for free for at least five years. This differs from merely offering five years of regular updates, as it sounds like a smartphone maker can get away with no updates at all! There doesn’t seem to be a requirement to update a phone in the first place (be it for platform updates or security patches). However, if an update is being offered, it should be available for at least five years since the phone was last officially on the market.

Finnish website After Dawn recently asked the relevant Finnish authorities about the interpretation of this regulation:

In response to your question about whether operators (smartphone manufacturers) are required to produce new updates, our interpretation of the Ecodesign requirements is that they are not.

However, operators are obligated to provide existing operating system security, corrective, and functionality updates for five years from the date the final physical unit of the model was placed on the market.

Unfortunately, the regulation doesn’t seem to mandate an update, but only mandates their delivery if a company offers them in the first place. That could be bad news for future smartphones in Europe, as other companies might wise up to this interpretation and offer similarly disappointing update policies. Then again, a long update policy is a great selling point for brands like Google, Samsung, and others. So Motorola might be shooting itself in the foot with this practice.

Nevertheless, we’ve asked Motorola and the European Commission for comment regarding this matter and for clarification of the interpretation. We’ll update the article as soon as they get back to us. Either way, we hope the commission tightens up this regulation to offer more clarity for update commitments.