Following through on a policy change announced in 2012, IBM has started restricting availability of hardware patches to paying customers, spurring at least one advocacy group to accuse the company of anticompetitive practices. IBM "is getting to the spot where the customer has no choice but to buy an IBM maintenance agreement, or lose access to patches and changes," said Gay Gordon-Byrne, executive director of the DRTR (Digital Right to Repair), a coalition for championing the rights of digital equipment owners.