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And this is why regulating companies is hard. It's difficult to word things in a way that's generic enough to cover many businesses while at the same time not l

by Osiris 5y ago

And this is why regulating companies is hard. It's difficult to word things in a way that's generic enough to cover many businesses while at the same time not leaving big loopholes.

amyjess 5y ago
See, I'd approach it a different way. Don't even give them the option of building their own UI. Require all companies who provide any kind of subscription service to implement specific API hooks that interact with a government portal. Specify the API endpoints, their expected payloads, and the resultant behaviors in excruciating detail (use formal methods if needed) and require that they send the API tokens to a specific secure endpoint controlled by the government. And the standard way of cancelling your service will be to log into the government portal, browse the list of subscription services you're subscribed to until you find what you're looking to cancel, click the checkbox next to it, and click 'Unsubscribe'. And the government portal will send an authenticated request to the company's legally-mandated cancel API and the cancel request, by law, must immediately result in automated total purging of the user's account with the company within 10 seconds of receiving the request.
- cthalupa 5y ago
  A lot of people would not be particularly thrilled with the idea of the government having record and access to all of their online subscriptions.
- spacebanana7 5y ago
  Apple pretty much has the solution you describe for IAP subscribtions and has a pseudo governmental role within in its ecosystem. I think the challenge for extending this approach to the rest of the economy is that many recurring payments / subscriptions involve situations where cancellations are naturally complex. Insurance, premium bank accounts, property taxes, car rentals, and school fees all involve recurring payments - but are naturally complicated to cancel for fair-ish reasons.
- Workaccount2 5y ago
  They just need to mandate that every company the provides a subscription, also provides a secure API for cancelling subscriptions. I want a god damn subscription manager app with centralized payment processing and toggle subscription switches.
- anticensor 5y ago
  > And the standard way of cancelling your service will be to log into the government portal, browse the list of subscription services you're subscribed to until you find what you're looking to cancel, click the checkbox next to it, and click 'Unsubscribe'. And the government portal will send an authenticated request to the company's legally-mandated cancel API and the cancel request, by law, must immediately result in automated total purging of the user's account with the company within 10 seconds of receiving the request. Turkey has that, but unfortunately only a limited number of companies participate.

by Osiris 5y ago

And this is why regulating companies is hard. It's difficult to word things in a way that's generic enough to cover many businesses while at the same time not leaving big loopholes.

amyjess 5y ago

See, I'd approach it a different way. Don't even give them the option of building their own UI. Require all companies who provide any kind of subscription service to implement specific API hooks that interact with a government portal. Specify the API endpoints, their expected payloads, and the resultant behaviors in excruciating detail (use formal methods if needed) and require that they send the API tokens to a specific secure endpoint controlled by the government. And the standard way of cancelling your service will be to log into the government portal, browse the list of subscription services you're subscribed to until you find what you're looking to cancel, click the checkbox next to it, and click 'Unsubscribe'. And the government portal will send an authenticated request to the company's legally-mandated cancel API and the cancel request, by law, must immediately result in automated total purging of the user's account with the company within 10 seconds of receiving the request.

cthalupa 5y ago
A lot of people would not be particularly thrilled with the idea of the government having record and access to all of their online subscriptions.
spacebanana7 5y ago
Apple pretty much has the solution you describe for IAP subscribtions and has a pseudo governmental role within in its ecosystem. I think the challenge for extending this approach to the rest of the economy is that many recurring payments / subscriptions involve situations where cancellations are naturally complex. Insurance, premium bank accounts, property taxes, car rentals, and school fees all involve recurring payments - but are naturally complicated to cancel for fair-ish reasons.
Workaccount2 5y ago
They just need to mandate that every company the provides a subscription, also provides a secure API for cancelling subscriptions. I want a god damn subscription manager app with centralized payment processing and toggle subscription switches.
anticensor 5y ago
> And the standard way of cancelling your service will be to log into the government portal, browse the list of subscription services you're subscribed to until you find what you're looking to cancel, click the checkbox next to it, and click 'Unsubscribe'. And the government portal will send an authenticated request to the company's legally-mandated cancel API and the cancel request, by law, must immediately result in automated total purging of the user's account with the company within 10 seconds of receiving the request. Turkey has that, but unfortunately only a limited number of companies participate.