We've been hearing anecdotal reports for the last few days that the little yellow sticker on the back of the Eee PC is meaningless. Now it looks like Asus is making it official: breaking that yellow sticker and upgrading your RAM or other PC parts is not a violation of your warranty.

Asus says that while they would prefer if you got an authorized technician to perform any upgrades, you're perfectly within your rights to undo the screws on the back of your unit and muck around on the insides. If you break anything, however, your out of luck.

"ASUS will replace the warranty label with a label to warn users that ASUS will not be responsible for the damage cause by improper hardware change."

The old don't break this seal will no longer be slapped onto new units -- "in any country where these stickers are not permitted." So there you go. The company, which has been selling PCs in the US for quite some time, just didn't realize that it was illegal to tell users they couldn't upgrade their units themselves. Or something like that.

Every Eee PC comes with a little sticker on the back that claims you'll void your warranty if you break the sticker. That wouldn't be so bad, but the sticker covers one of the two screws that you need to remove if you want to take off the back panel and upgrade your RAM, which by all reports is incredibly easy to do. You know, if you want to void your warranty.

There's been a lot of discussion lately over whether or not Asus can legally void your warranty if you perform a procedure as simple as upgrading your RAM. Now it turns out the company will honor warranty claims made by users who have damaged that sticker. Although Asus would prefer you get a certified technician to perform any upgrades for you (thus minimizing the risk of damage and ticked off customers), the sticker apparently serves no legal purpose.

So what's it there for? My best guess is to discourage users from opening up their computers on their own. The vast majority of people who buy an Eee PC will not bother calling Asus support of hunting around the interwebs to find out if they really void their warranty by removing the sticker. After all, it says so right on the sticker, doesn't it?

The moral of this story. Never trust anything you read on a yellow sticker. You know, unless it says Police: Do not cross.

Update: It's official. Asus has released a statement letting you know that you can upgrade your unit without violating your warranty.