In mid June I wrote about a new line of HP printers (Very  Cool HP Printer) that have their own email address. This enables users to print, from anywhere in the world, just by sending an email to their printer.  While this technology is very practical, it does raise two concerns.

1) The printer becoming a target for SPAM

2) Any scheduled delivery services offered by HP or partnering companies

The issue of SPAM might be a big one or it might not. There are U.S. laws that prohibit unsolicited ads from being sent by fax. Some presume that the same laws would cover unsolicited ads being sent to a ePrintenabled printer. But, and this is a big but, there are also laws that apply to the SPAM you receive via email. Has the amount of SPAM email been reduced? Remember, your printer will have an email address. It is a very real possibility that your printer would very soon be printing out SPAM and you’d be assuming the cost associated with the printing (ink and paper).

The second question is just a legitimized version of SPAM. If HP, or a partner company such as Yahoo!, can get you to “opt in”, they can deliver advertisements to your printer without any legal ramifications. When you opt in, it is no longer considered SPAM. It’s now legit! Keep in mind, you won’t be getting straight advertisements. You’ll be opting in to a service that delivers news and other information you wish to receive. The printed page will include advertisements along with the information you request.

Advertising, be it SPAM or not, is not the major issue here. The issue is that HP (to their credit as a business) has found a way to sell more ink cartridges. Unfortunately, in my opinion, it is a very wasteful way to sell more ink cartridges.

Think about it. The big push over the last few years has been to “go paperless”. Everyone thought there would be no need to print anything. In actuality we ended up printing more, and we were in control of what we printed.  Now we get ePrintenabled printers and we are giving up some of that control to HP and Yahoo!. Granted we still have to opt in, but we all know how that goes. Look at all the email you receive from having opted in to something that looked really good at the time. For some reason we are quick to opt in, but very slow to opt out.

Now we are opted in and HP is printing on our printer every day. Who’s paying for the ink and paper HP is using? We are!

Think about it. For as cool as this technology sounds, how much is it going to cost you? Let me know what you think. Thanks!