[AnotherGoodName]

They are required by law to do certain things. You can't print black if yellow is out because the tracking microdots won't print. The region is extremely important not to be changed because different regions have different requirements.

You can't even create a printer startup and fix the issues because it's all basically regulatory.

[gambiting]

That doesn't make sense - obviously black-only laser printers exist and manage to be compliant just fine

[AnotherGoodName]

That's exactly why the black only printers are so good though. They escape regulation to print yellow dots since they can't print subtle yellow dots.

They still have tracking dots. But at least you can print when yellow is out.

[kroltan]

Regulation is "color printers need telltales", not "color prints need telltales"

[gambiting]

I do not believe that a colour laser printed can't switch to whatever tracking dots mono laser printers use when out of yellow ink. I'd believe laziness over compliance issues.

[midoridensha]

Citation needed about tracking dots on B&W lasers. I don't see why they're necessary: the main reason is for anti-counterfeiting. B&W lasers can't be used for printing counterfeit money, for what I hope are obvious reasons.

[gambiting]

I don't know if they have them - but the same argument still applies. If you're printing in mono then no tracking dots are necessary, therefore stop complaining about missing yellow ink.

[Kwpolska]

[citation needed]

Printers are mechanical devices. Putting ink on the page in a way that actually looks good requires quite a lot of precision. It may take a lot of resources to get a marketable product, so it’s not something startups tend to do.

[TheHappyOddish]

From what I can see, there are no such laws or regulations.

Can you provide any citations for this claim?

[withinrafael]

Am fascinated by the consumer regulatory angle here. Got any examples/text to read over?

[AnotherGoodName]

You can read more about how the eff has determined that 'all major printer manufacturers have a secret agreement with governments to implement tracking'. There's no link to the specific agreements though since they are secret. It's just known that printers add colored docs to track documents and it's also known that this is required by various governments throughout the world.

https://www.eff.org/pages/list-printers-which-do-or-do-not-d...