Now that we have understood what root is and what it can do for your device, let’s first take a look at the legalities of rooting your android device.
If you notice, all these while I’ve been using the word android device; not android phone or android tablet. There’s an actual reason for doing that, I’ll explain that in a short while.
Taken from Wikipedia, the below is the excerpt on the legality part:
Australia
Rooting of any device is legal if the purpose is to run legal apps.
Europe
The Free Software Foundation Europe argues that it is legal to root or flash any device. According to the European Directive 1999/44/CE, replacing the original operating system with another does not void the statutory warranty that covers the hardware of the device for two years unless the seller can prove that the modification caused the defect.
United States
On July 26, 2010, the United States Copyright Office announced a new exemption making it officially legal to root a device and run unauthorized third-party applications, as well as the ability to unlock any cell phone for use on multiple carriers.
On October 28, 2012, the US Copyright Office updated their exemption policies. The rooting of smartphones continues to be legal "where circumvention is accomplished for the sole purpose of enabling interoperability of [lawfully obtained software] applications with computer programs on the telephone handset." However, the U.S. Copyright office refused to extend this exemption to tablets, arguing that the term "tablets" is broad and ill-defined, and an exemption to this class of devices could have unintended side effects.
At the time of writing, as you can clearly see from the above; rooting is legal, but only limited to smartphones and not tablets. (in US only and valid for the next three years)
So be sure to check your country’s legality before proceeding to root your phone, we don’t want to be in the wrong side of the law in case anything untoward happens.
Now that we have understood the legality aspect of rooting, the choice is still yours. As long as you fully understood the risks and implications, root does allows you more control of your phone and puts you in charge.
The next article will talk about the benefits as well as the disadvantages, so you can make a better informed choice either to root or not to root.
