White House petition started to make unlocking phones legal
As we mentioned earlier, the exemption to the DMCA which allowed for jailbreaking/rooting of phones also allowed for users to unlock devices that they bought from a carrier. But, that second provision is set to expire this Saturday, which will effectively make it illegal for someone to unlock their phone even after a device is off subsidy and is paid in full. Now, if you want to change that, a petition has been created to force the White House to respond to the issue.
Unfortunately, because of the recent petition asking the government to build a Death Star, the White House Petitions website has raised the threshold of signatures needed from 25,000 to 100,000. As of this writing, the current petition has hit 1,370 signatures in its short time online, so there is a long way to go before the White House would be forced to respond, but the petition will remain active until February 23rd, so that is the deadline for the signatures, not Saturday.
If you would like to be able to legally unlock your carrier-locked phone after this Saturday, you'll probably want to go to the source and sign the petition. And, spread this link around of course.
source: We The People (White House Petitions) via The Next Web
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Things that are NOT allowed: