List of Printers Which Do or Do Not Display Tracking Dots

I wrote this article/originally created this list, and I would like to emphasize that there is a second generation of this technology that probably uses dithering parameters or something of that sort, and that does not produce visible dots but still creates a tracking code. We don't know the details but we do know that some companies told governments that they were going to do this, and that some newer printers from companies that the government agencies said were onboard with forensic marking no longer print yellow dots.

That makes me think that it may have been a mistake to create this list in the first place, because the main practical use of the list would be to help people buy color laser printers that don't do forensic tracking, yet it's not clear that any such printers are actually commercially available.

What is annoying is that the user pays for this. How much more yellow toner do I need to buy because my print outs are covered in yellow dots?

I wonder how many million extra gallons of yellow toner and ink are wasted every year printing these tracker dots?

On some printers, this is the reason why the printer will refuse to print a BW-only printout while the only empty cartridge is the color one.

I'm not so sure about that. Having had an inside view into one such program I can say confidently that at least in that particular major manufacturer's situation, that had absolutely nothing to do with it. It was entirely engineering-driven and about preserving the print head.

or so they said... Do you really know the ultimate reason why?