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crote • today at 1:20 PM • 0 replies • view on HN

Because the consumer has to be able to trivially scan it with their smartphone and get useful information out of it. In reality, that means it has to be a valid URL you can visit with a web browser, as forcing literally everyone to install a proprietary URN-handling app is a dealbreaker.

The whole point of it is that you can just say "scan the barcode with your smartphone to find out if your product is part of this recall".