Yes this has always been an issue. I suspect that now with data protection nothing is going to get done. I'd have thought that in the grand scheme of things somebody, somewhere has details of what you bought, and if it was just a case of every retailer sharing this with the makers apart from second hand sales and some other omissions, it should be possible to track them all down. I was talking to a friend of mine who nearly had a fire due to a tumble dryers internal insulation shedding and catching fire. What had occurred was that she had a new kitchen fitted and it was put in as part of the job. The fact is that the supplier had obviously been recorded as the owner but had not bothered to either keep records of who had which model or simply had no idea.
As always, sadly its only when something happens that you find this stuff out.
Back in my days with a TV maker, we also rented other makes as well as our own, It was kept quiet, but one maker Bush of the very early colour tvs could have a fault which meant that high power Xrays were generated by one valve and fired through the bottom of the cabinet. As the TV had legs, I bet a lot of pets who laid under the cats got a fairly big dose. What the company in fact did was put out a little lead screen that should be soldered in place below the valve, but it was only fitted when there was a service call. Of course the fault condition meant that in theory that it could not actually work, but it did not actually blow a fuse and on more than one occasion people had been using it in sound only to listen to soaps while in the kitchen or whatever. One should never assume the general public will not use something with a fault. Brian