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by johannesrexx 476 days ago
The yellow toner is needed to print the yellow steganographic dot pattern containing the printer serial number. My guess is that for Brother to comply with its agreement with the US Secret Service, the printer has to have yellow toner to print anything at all.

Also the wording in the Brother tech support article you linked to tells us how to print *using* only black toner, it does not say that this works when the color cartridges are empty. Sneaky bastiches!