They control the microchip market and encrypt their chips so that they can only be read by their own brand scanner. Anyone who wants to create a scanner that can read all chips -- a so called universal scanner -- has to pay Avid to license their technology. That is just extraordinary for a product that is ONLY used to *return animals to their owners*. It means the likelihood of the dog being returned if taken abroad and lost, is virtually nil. It means there's no incentive for competition because if vets use any other chip, a shelter or pound or vet has to buy additional scanners to read the non Avid chips. This introduces significant extra costs to pounds, shelters and rescue who must buy additional scanners at about $300 a pop. Many do not keep both scanners, increasing the chance that a pet will NOT get returned.
Or to put it another way: Microsoft was brought before the US on antitrust charges for 'tying' a product in this way. Avid removes all choice and competition from the US market, uses outdated technology, AND lowers the effectiveness of its product in the entire rest of the world for US customers using its chips.
What is very interesting is that Avid does NONE of this outside the US. Their chips are not encrypted, they can be read by all scanners, and they are ISO standard.
Go figure.
They have somehow managed to convince Americans that they 'won' the competition by having a superior product and everyone else only is complaining because they have such a large portion of the market. The reality is that doing things the way they do allows them to dictate to American pet owners, vets and the rescue system what chips will be used and gives them a huge lucrative market for their scanners, while not benefiting animals overall at all.
If your Avid chipped dog arrives at a shelter without an Avid scanner, it probably won't find its way back to its owner. The chances are very slim that it will be returned to its owner outside the US because the chip won't even be read as a number and 99% of the rest of the world will simply think it is a defective chip -- and rehome or euthenise the pet.
How such a system ever came to be the dominant system is beyond me. The non-ISO chips have been substandard for well over a decade too. The reason Avid uses them as far as I can understand is that they could not block other readers from reading their chips if they used standardised chips. Avid only gets away with this because they can rely on a large homogenous market that is generally unaware of how it is dictated to, to the detriment of US pets and the entire animal welfare system that does try to reunite animals and owners.
Isn't the whole point of a chip to be able to have it read so the animal stands a chance of being returned? The fact that this isn't how things work is what prompted me to write the Guardian piece in the first place as I couldn't believe the problem US chips cause outside the US (s well as inside) when trying to reunite animals and owners.