Amazon Pulls The Plug On Dodgy USB-C Cables

Amazon is clamping down on sub-par cables and adapters using USB-C connectivity sold on its site with new rules to stop the sale of potentially dangerous products.

The online retail giant has made an addition to its list of prohibited electronics items to include “Any USB-C™ (or USB Type-C™) cable or adapter product that is not compliant with standard specifications issued by “USB Implementers Forum Inc.”

The new guidelines will apply to any merchant selling items through its Amazon Sellers programme, with any firm found out to be disobeying the rules facing a shutdown of their Amazon account and the destroying any of their products stocked in any Amazon fulfilment centres.

Vigilant

Other products included on the Amazon banned Electronics list include radar and GPS jammers, laser pointers and DVD duplicators, showing how seriously the company is taking this issue.

The change was noticed by Google developer and exhaustive USB-C tester Benson Leung, who commented that the news was, “Really great…but we all have to continue to be vigilant and call out any bad products we find on Amazon and other stores (both online and brick and mortar) as we find them.”

The USB Implementers Forum Inc is a non-profit corporation founded by the group of companies that developed the Universal Serial Bus specification, and looks to try and forward the future development of the technology.

The group published a full list of compliant USB-C cables last year.

As it stands, USB-C technology, which was finalised back in August 2014, is still largely in its infancy, with devices sporting the connections still few in number.

Most recently, laptop devices including Google’s Pixel C Chromebook and selected Apple MacBook models sport USB-C connectivity, as do smartphones and phablets including the LG G5, Sony Xperia Z5, Google’s Nexus 5X and 6P, as well as HP’s Elite X3 device.

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