As I understand it, one of the reasons earlier iterations of the USB standard were popular with manufacturers was that it was logistically and administratively easy. You didn't have to license a bunch of expensive patents and certification is quite easy.

Going against that might be possible, but it strikes me as perhaps difficult to get implementors to go along with.

Do you really think a Chinese manufacturer of cheap cables cares if they’re displaying various logos with the proper license or not otherwise misleading customers? Look up the whole “CE” vs “China Export” thing...

What's strange is that stuff gets imported and sold in the west. It used to be illegal and you couldn't get pirate products in shops but now Amazon somehow just does it flagrantly. Doesn't customs ever seize a container of cables with the wrong logos on them anymore?

How would customs know? They would need to test them, which seems unpractical.

As if a logo on a cable is important.

For Display Port cables, if they're not certified, you run the risk of strange hardware faults at best, smoking hardware at presumably worst.

USB4 is tremendously more dangerous if the cable does something really wrong.

The problem is that you don't know if the logo is valid. Anyone can just print it on their product. Even buying from Amazon won't save you all the time.

To me it'd have been immensely helpful. If there had been 2 manufacturers with a logo (or a clear spec), I'd certainly have bought from them.