A new offender has been added to Amazon’s prohibited products list for third-party sellers: USB-C cables and adapters that are “not compliant with standard specifications issued by USB Implementers Forum.” It’s a perfectly sensible policy, though it’s probably most significant for Amazon feeling the need to spell it out. Substandard cables have flooded the market in response to the enthusiastic embrace of USB-C by early tech adopters, and that’s grown into a large enough problem for Amazon to acknowledge it. A bad USB-C cable can completely destroy your laptop if you’re not careful about its use, and so enforcing adherence to the USB-IF standards is at least a step in the right direction. Non-compliant USB-C cables now sit alongside laser pointers, cell and GPS jammers, and jailbroken iPhones on Amazon’s list of undesirables.
