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US Court nullifies FTC requirement for click-to-cancel
- eleveriven 1y agoHonestly, it's wild that something as common-sense as "make canceling as easy as signing up" is this hard to implement
- oblio 1y agoIt's not hard to implement, in the sense of "hard to implement software feature". It's hard because businesses don't want cancellation to be easy, as they lose money. A lot of people forget to cancel or just can't be bothered for a long time, especially if cancellation is hard. And yes, it's as predatory as it sounds. It's basically the financialization of business, as some point one of the few ways towards "growth" is nickel-and-diming everyone you can.
- mystraline 1y ago[flagged]
- jdlshore 1y agoThis is the definition of an ad hominem attack. If you want to prove the judges are partisan, talk about the flaws in the ruling, not who appointed them.
- mschuster91 1y agoThat's the problem that automatically arises when the justice system is made out of political appointments instead of career tracks. There will always be the suspicion of political bias, and the haphazard way the administrations ever since Obama went in how nominations were done adds more fuel to the fire.
- bigbacaloa 1y ago[dead]
- cebert 1y ago[dupe] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44504694 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44504694
- ars 1y ago"after finding that the commission behind it failed to follow required procedures under the FTC Act during the rule-making process."
- throw10920 1y agoI hope the FTC tries to re-submit the rule while following procedure - click-to-cancel is really good for consumers... but not enough to justify trying to break laws to pass it.
- dylan604 1y agoYou realize the current FTC is not the same FTC that did this? There’s no way this FTC does anything in favor of consumers
- AIorNot 1y ago[flagged]
- privatelypublic 1y agoDid you read the article? "Procedures weren't followed." Seems like an almost intentional mistake tbh
- SoftTalker 1y agoYeah not a great article. "failed to follow required procedures under the FTC Act during the rule-making process" but no real details on what the procedures require that the commission did not do.
- mystraline 1y agoYou have 2 trump appointees and George hw bush appointee. Were you expecting respectable and proper jurisprudence? I'm not any more.
- db48x 1y agoA trivial search will get you the court opinion itself <https://ecf.ca8.uscourts.gov/opndir/25/07/243137P.pdf https://ecf.ca8.uscourts.gov/opndir/25/07/243137P.pdf>, so regardless of how bad the news article is you should not be uninformed. From the abstract: …the Commission failed to follow procedural requirements under § 22 of the Federal Trade Commission Act (“FTC Act”), 15 U.S.C. § 57b-3(b)(1) A more detailed explanation: The Commission’s formal rulemaking authority is found in § 18 of the FTC Act. Section 18 authorizes the Commission to adopt “rules which define with specificity acts or practices which are unfair or deceptive acts or practices in or affecting commerce” within the meaning of § 5, as well as “requirements prescribed for the purpose of preventing such acts or practices.” 15 U.S.C. § 57a(a)(1)(B) (emphasis added). … Besides the specificity and prevalence requirements, § 18 requires a number of procedural steps, some of which go beyond those required for APA notice-and- comment rulemaking. The FTC must first publish an “advance notice of proposed rulemaking” containing “a brief description of the area of inquiry under consideration, the objectives which the Commission seeks to achieve, and possible regulatory alternatives under consideration.” 15 U.S.C. § 57a(b)(2)(A). Also required is a notice of proposed rulemaking “stating with particularity the text of the rule, including any alternatives, which the Commission proposes to promulgate, and the reason for the proposed rule.” Id. § 57a(b)(1)(A). Interested parties must be afforded the opportunity for “an informal hearing” and to “to submit written data, views, and arguments” on the proposed rule. Id. § 57a(b)(1)(B)-(C), (c). Congress further required the Commission to conduct regulatory analyses of proposed and final rules, or amendments to rules, at two stages of the rulemaking process. First, when the Commission publishes a notice of proposed rulemaking, it also must issue a “preliminary regulatory analysis” containing “a description of any reasonable alternatives to the proposed rule which may accomplish the stated objective of the rule” and for the proposed rule and each alternative, “a preliminary analysis of the projected benefits and any adverse economic effects and any other effects, and of the effectiveness of the proposed rule and each alternative in meeting the stated objectives of the proposed rule.” 15 U.S.C. § 57b-3(b)(1)(B)-(C). Second, the Commission must issue a “final regulatory analysis” when it promulgates a final rule. 15 U.S.C. § 57b-3(b)(2). Similar to the preliminary regulatory analysis, the final regulatory analysis must include a description of alternatives considered by the Commission and an analysis of projected benefits and adverse economic and other effects. The Commission must also provide “an explanation of the reasons for the determination of the Commission that the final rule will attain its objectives” and a “summary of any significant issues raised by the comments submitted . . . in response to the preliminary regulatory analysis.” Id. § 57b-3(b)(2)(B)-(E). Importantly, the preliminary and final regulatory analysis requirements do not apply to “any amendment to a rule” unless the FTC estimates that the amendment “will have an annual effect on the national economy of $100,000,000 or more.” Id. § 57b-3(a)(1)(A). Notice all of the steps. “advance notice of proposed rulemaking”, “notice of proposed rulemaking”, “preliminary regulatory analysis”, “an informal hearing” plus the ability of concerned parties “to submit written data, views, and arguments” to the FTC, and a “final regulatory analysis”. The court draws our attention to the fact that the FTC never did either of the regulatory analysis steps, and points out that they are required. The FTC had opted out of doing those analyses on the basis that the new rule would have an annual impact of less than a hundred million dollars. The court however notes that this is quite unlikely: Based on the FTC’s estimate that 106,000 entities currently offer negative option features and estimated average hourly rates for professionals such as lawyers, website developers, and data scientists whose services would be required by many businesses to comply with the new requirements, the ALJ observed that unless each business used fewer than twenty-three hours of professional services at the lowest end of the spectrum of estimated hourly rates, the Rule’s compliance costs would exceed $100 million. Such an estimate was “clearly unrealistically low inasmuch as there are several new requirements proposed that would require changes in existing practices and/or disclosure forms.” Thus the FTC erred when it skipped these steps. The remedy is to vacate: Section 18 of the FTC Act directs that a reviewing court “shall hold unlawful and set aside the rule” if it finds agency action to be “without observance of procedure required by law.” 15 U.S.C. § 57a(e)(3); 5 U.S.C. § 706(2)(D). “The ordinary practice is to vacate unlawful agency action.” United Steel v. Mine Safety & Health Admin., 925 F.3d 1279, 1287 (D.C. Cir. 2019). This doesn’t mean that the rule is unconstitutional, just that the FTC has to actually do things correctly. The court hasn’t ruled on the law itself because it is moot.
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
- fwlr 1y agoThe FTC was warned at the time that they were flouting required procedures and that their rule would therefore not survive legal scrutiny. Lo and behold it did not.
- dboreham 1y agoBecause systematic corruption presumably?
- jibe 1y agoIf you are sniffing out corruption, aren’t the ones flouting required procedures likely the corrupt ones?
- Aeolun 1y agoKinda, but corruption in my favor is unlikely to see me complain about it.
- wrasee 1y agoThat’s obviously no justification, all corruption is in someone’s favour. Society functions by rules. Break those founding principles and you break everything.
- wqaatwt 1y agoWhat if the “required procedures” are held in place by corruption?
- hshdhdhj4444 1y agoAlmost never. Whistleblowers are almost always revealing information that they are legally prevented from revealing, otherwise you wouldn’t need a whistleblower. A simple FOIA request would suffice.
- tbrownaw 1y agoMore that they mistakenly thought that doing the right thing meant they didn't have to do the thing right.
- xedrac 1y agoI always felt like those click to unsubscribe links were nothing more than a "please prove to us with certainty that this is an actively used account so we can set a sticky bit on it and sell that info for $$$"
- orev 1y agoThat’s a commonly held idea for spam emails. This is about services you’ve signed up and pay for on a recurring basis, and was targeted at companies who make it very easy to open an account, but then require byzantine methods to cancel.
- DANmode 1y agoThat is a valid paranoia, but also, not the kind of subscription the article is about.
- globalnode 1y agojust mark them as spam, hurts them more and doesnt notify them of anything.
- whycome 1y agoIt’s like browser popups that only give you the option of block or allow. I want neither! Block means I add that site to a permanent local list and I really need no record of it at all.
- bpodgursky 1y agoFrom a different article [1]: > But the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit said the FTC erred in its rulemaking process by failing to produce a preliminary regulatory analysis, a statutory requirement for rules whose annual effect on the national economy would exceed $100 million. > The FTC had argued that it was not required to prepare the preliminary analysis because its initial estimate of the rule’s impact on the national economy was under the $100 million threshold — even though ultimately the presiding officer determined the impact exceeded the threshold. This is a case where congress really did pass a concrete law, and the court is requiring the FTC to follow it. Sucks that a reasonable rule is getting voided for the sloppiness but I really don't think the courts are indefensibly out of line. [1] https://thehill.com/policy/technology/5390731-appeals-court-voids-ftcs-click-to-cancel-rule-just-before-it-starts/ https://thehill.com/policy/technology/5390731-appeals-court-...
- jordanb 1y agoFrom googling apparently the "presiding officer" is appointed by the FTC chair. So it sounds like the FTC spiked its own case.
- bpodgursky 1y agoIt was Lina Khan. She just felt strongly about going out the way she came in — losing every single case.
- fxtentacle 1y agoIllumina, Tapestry, Kroger, Lockheed Martin would disagree. Also, didn’t she „build“ the right to repair laws?
- jordanb 1y agoThere is a new FTC administration. I interpret this as being the incoming FTC wanted to kill this but not withdrawal (due to bad optics). They wanted to lose the case and did so by changing a judgment they controlled so that the rule could fail a legal procedural challenge.
- highwayman47 1y agoSevering contracts for me, not for thee.
- ProllyInfamous 1y ago[flagged]
- standardUser 1y agoThe 8th circuit court of appeals is the most conservative, with only one judge appointed by a Democratic president.
- dmix 1y agoWhat about the earlier administrative judge who warned FTC they were ignoring established rules when it was reviewed the first time, then FTC proceeded to ignore that judge and passed it anyway, which resulted it in being in front of this appeals court?
- bluGill 1y agoIn this case it quickly becomes clear that the court was right. The ends do not justify the means. Score one for conservatives for following/enforcing the law I guess.
- thrance 1y agoWeird how they only enforce the law when it serves their interests though.
- bluGill 1y agoThat is false. The conservatives have made it clear that they support the rule, but it needs to be done right. The real question is why are liberals willing to ignore the law?
- standardUser 1y ago> The real question is why are liberals willing to ignore the law? I hope you don't get accidentally deported to a foreign prison by those lofty conservatives who are SO concerned with following the letter of the law. But yeah, when a far right court digs up a technicality that just happens to serve the corporate interests that line the pockets of those who appointed these judges well... that's the justice you must truly value.
- HPsquared 1y agoThe time to unsubscribe is now!
- dalemhurley 1y agoHere is an idea, make your service value for money and people will not want to cancel. If your product is so poor that the only way you can retain customers is to make it too hard for them to cancel then your product needs to be improved.
- db48x 1y agoThat is a novel idea! But ironically it is not actually the issue that was in front of the court.
- silisili 1y agoYou just offended siriusxm, every newspaper, and every gym in the country.
- dylan604 1y agoOffice365. I only have it because it’s necessary for work not because I want to use the product.
- delecti 1y agoWaPo and NYT were both very easy to cancel.
- ethagnawl 1y agoWaPo was easy when I canceled last November. The lost time I canceled a NYT subscription, it still required a phone call.
- buckle8017 1y agoThey say it requires a phone call but amazingly an email that's says you will charge back any future charge works too. Almost like they can do it without the phone or something.
- _carbyau_ 1y agoDon't forget swimming pool season pass. I will buy my next season pass when I have a history of entry transactions that proves I could have saved by buying one...
- MengerSponge 1y agoMy favorite underappreciated aspect of the iOS app store is its absolutely friction-free cancellation. It makes me much more willing to trial a subscription service because I know I won't have to spend an hour of my life on the phone with a lovely Filipino man to stop that service.
- Towaway69 1y agoThis. My iPhone is still a pleasure to use, everyday. But perhaps I can only appreciate this because I was an android user for years. The killer app for me on iPhone? Files. I literally switched from iPhone 3 to android because it didn’t have a file manager! Thankfully I came back.
- politelemon 1y agoIt was the opposite journey for me. I never felt for once that it was my iPhone, perhaps because I was an android user for years.
- oblio 1y agoApparently Google Play has the same cancellation mechanism.
- arielcostas 1y agoGoogle Play also has that if you subscribe through there (which might be more expensive because of the fee Google takes), plus an easier refund system if you subscribe to something and decide it's not worth paying it
- nerdjon 1y agoThat and the reminder emails from Apple. It is one reason that with this switch allowing apps to send me outside of Apple's Ecosystem to subscribe, I hope that developers realize that if they make this the only option there are likely many people like myself that just won't subscribe to your app. I am far more likely to try a subscription that costs a couple dollars a month if it is through the app store instead of through some random website.
- xyst 1y agoThe USA is not a country for the people. It’s a country for the rich and powerful. The game is rigged and enough deluded people think they can "game" it as well.
- dylan604 1y agoThis was pretty well established by the constitution, only you left out white male from your rich and powerful. It took amendments to get past white and male.
- boroboro4 1y agoWhile it’s true US was quite good on equality amongst this particular group. What we have now is quite different from it.
- arwhatever 1y agoOur culture is an unfortunate nexus between strong contract enforcement and weak consumer protections.
- tjpnz 1y agoSure it is. Corporations are people too and laws like these take away their freedoms!
- postalrat 1y agoI should be able to go into my bank or card service online. View a list of all my subscriptions. Click on a subscription (or select all). And cancel. If there is a card that offers this let me know because I'll be switching immediately.
- LiamPowell 1y agoSimply move to Australia, all the major banks here offer this service: https://payto.com.au/ https://payto.com.au/ Not all services offer this yet, but it's gaining momentum, especially with Amazon now offering it for non-subscriptions.
- saulpw 1y agoI use privacy.com for this. (Not affiliated, just a satisfied customer.)
- gblargg 1y agoI wasn't able to jump through their hoops to sign up. They wanted my bank login, which I will absolutely not give to anyone. I tried a debit card but that also failed.
- missedthecue 1y agoI had a recurring charge on my Capital One credit card and canceled it from my Capital One app. The next month, the charge went through again and they proactively gave me an account credit equal to the charged amount, with an emailed apology. I'm not sure why they couldn't cancel it, or if it will go through again this month, but it surprised me!
- nico 1y agoI had a subscription with an account that I couldn’t access anymore, and there wasn’t any other way to cancel So I contested the charge through the bank. They would refund me, but then the company would charge me again for the subscription This went on for several months. At some point the card expired, the bank automatically sent me a new card, and somehow the company was still able to charge the subscription to my new card, even though I couldn’t even access my account It was a couple of years ago, and I don’t remember how I finally stopped it. But it was kinda shocking to me to see the charges “jump” through different cards. Especially given that usually any service that I don’t want cancelled, gets immediately cancelled if my card on file expires
- tiahura 1y agoThe FTC failed to comply with 15 U.S.C. § 57b-3(b)(1), which states that the agency “shall issue a preliminary regulatory analysis” whenever it proposes a rule expected to have a significant economic impact. After its own ALJ found the rule’s effect would exceed $100 million annually, the FTC was obligated to publish an analysis of the “projected benefits and any adverse economic effects and any other effects” and the effectiveness of alternatives, as required by § 57b-3(b)(1)(C).
- Irongirl1 1y agoFYI: Everyone just use privacy.com It allows you to make virtual cards that are single use. So if a merchant keeps trying to charge you, it will automatically decline. Until the powers that be gets its act together and stops allowing businesses to run all over us...this is the way.
- firesteelrain 1y agoNever heard of this; thanks for the tip!
- mrheosuper 1y agoGreat, another service that collects my purchase information.
- Hnrobert42 1y agoThis is why I've never used these services.
- Shank 1y ago> So if a merchant keeps trying to charge you, it will automatically decline. I learned this the hard way with the New York Times doing this, but merchants can “force settle” a transaction if they want and it’ll override the decline they get. This is a violation of the merchant agreement but companies do it anyway (like NYT did to me). Privacy isn’t as bullet-proof as you would think.
- DaSHacka 1y agoHow could it override the decline if you cancel the card entirely in Privacy?
- jabroni_salad 1y agoIt's an authorized recurring charge. Disabling the card only really works for sure on new charges. The only 'real' way to deauthorize it is to convince the merchant to do it for you. Every other method is just creating enough friction that you hope it will be too expensive for the merchant to fight back.
- db48x 1y agoFor those of you wondering what the actual decision says: <https://ecf.ca8.uscourts.gov/opndir/25/07/243137P.pdf https://ecf.ca8.uscourts.gov/opndir/25/07/243137P.pdf>
- throwawaymaths 1y agoSpectrum (cable/telephone/internet) kept me on the phone line for 30 minutes as i tried to cancel.
- JohnTHaller 1y agoAsk my girlfriend about my phone call with Time Warner (pre Spectrum) where I said the words "I want to cancel cable TV but keep internet" about two dozen times to 3 different people.
- RankingMember 1y agoThe need to repeat yourself over and over as you get transferred multiple times is maddening.
- aaronbrethorst 1y agoI wonder who's on the 8th Circuit Court of Appeals... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Court_of_Appeals_for_the_Eighth_Circuit#Current_composition_of_the_court https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Court_of_Appeals... Bush 41: 2 Bush 43: 6 Obama: 1 Trump: 4 oh
- Varelion 1y ago[flagged]
- unethical_ban 1y agoIf we had a Congress who knew what Signal, e-mail, or credit cards were, then we may get actual legislation protecting consumer rights.
- bogwog 1y agoThe average age of congress members is 58 years old, which is 6 years older than the first cellphone call. Wikipedia lists 4 Congress members that have died in office of "unspecified natural causes" since 2022. Aka they literally died of old age while in office. I don't think they know what Signal, e-mail, or credit cards are.
- supertrope 1y agoIt's not a matter of not being tech savvy. It's the lobbyists who schmooze with them and the campaign donors who give them money.
- barkingcat 1y agoDark pattern galore
- beezlewax 1y agoI've used a learning platform called Brilliant in the past. The cancellation process was so convoluted that it was impossible to cancel the account. Dark patterns and confusing language. They refused to refund me and after I thought I'd cancelled and I had to run a charge back from my bank. This is nefarious behaviour on their part and consumers need to be protected from it.
- fuzztester 1y agoDo you mean brilliant.org ?
- beezlewax 1y agoYes
- trueismywork 1y agoIn contrast in EU, I sent an email to my service to cancel and they forgot to cancel. I just sent them another email with proof of email and they realised they missed the old one and canceled retroactively and refunded money to my account.
- pbh101 1y agoThis has not been my experience cancelling eu services.
- guelo 1y agoOf course it's going to cost more than $100 million if they have stop stealing from us. Corporate Republicans hate red tape and regulation for business but love it for starngling government and the poor (they just added huge onoreous red tape to medicaid and food stamp recipients because they absolutely hate their fellow americans).
- pjmlp 1y agoThe consumer protection laws are so bad the other side of Atlantic. Most European countries, have their own version of consumer protection agencies, usually any kind of complaint gets sorted out, even if takes a couple months. If they fail for whatever reason, there is still the top European one. Most of the time I read about FTC, it appears to side with the wrong guys.
- b00ty4breakfast 1y agoneoliberal deregulation and regulatory capture, not necessarily in that order, has basically killed federal consumer protection in the US.
- scrubs 1y agoAnd it can get worse. Over shooting right (left) invariably leads to overshoot left (right) which we absolutely do not need either. The American sense (when we get off our butts and do it) is common sense, slowly changing law that always apportions control in equal parts to accountability. It's the last part that is more galling (because increasingly we've failed) and ultimately will be the more decisive in any future inflection point.
- idiotsecant 1y agoI think the century of American dominance is probably over. Maybe we can fight our way back to having a functional government, maybe not. I think either way our position in the world order is already diminished and will steadily diminish further. I can see a future where America is a strange backwater, reliant on resource extraction and rules over by a grubby and constantly shifting mafia state.
- DaSHacka 1y agoAnd who would supersede the states by picking up the mantle?
- 1y ago
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
- api 1y agoDisputing charges through banks will become the way to cancel things.
- cryptonector 1y agoNot really. Lots of people in this thread explain why not: - it's not foolproof as many of those cards will allow the merchant to override - their claim can get sent to collections and hurt your credit score - you can get canceled Seriously, if you cancel payment on a company, they'll never do business with you again, and when it's a large and difficult-to-do-without company it can hurt. Telling people to cancel payment to cancel is just bad advice that will hurt them. We really need strong regulation here. There is no substitute.
- everdrive 1y agoOne consequence here that people need to think about is that ALL subscription services should be viewed with suspicion. Once you sign up how much of your life will be deranged simply by trying to cancel the service. It's a hidden cost which shouldn't be forgotten.
- pona-a 1y agoSo there's a business argument for this regulation. If the consumers feel unsafe giving their credit cards to most companies, they'll spend less on subscription services in total, harming the industry more than they gain from milking zombie customers.
- whycome 1y agoIs zombie customer an official term. And how much of their profits are from that sector? Is this like airlines over selling seats?
- adgjlsfhk1 1y agozombie purchasers is the business model of basically every gym. they lose money on the people that actually show up. the money makers are the people who sign up for a membership, go once or twice and then forget to cancel (or purchased a full year at once)
- rsanek 1y agoi mostly use Robinhood virtual cards for services now. if i want to cancel i just cancel the card.
- quitit 1y agoThis is one of the reasons why providers -hate- IAP subscriptions, even if the profit share was 0%, they'd still not be happy because with IAP it's just one click to cancel. It's not even a practice limited to "shady" companies, the New York Times would let you sign up online, but only cancel via a convoluted phone call with one of their subscription retainment reps. These days you're better off obtaining a credit card which lets you instantly block transactions. These companies with their b/s unsubscribe gauntlets aren't worth your time.
- SuperSandro2000 1y ago3rd world country customer protection laws...
- ChoGGi 1y agoI bet Trump will surely sign an executive order putting click to cancel into place any day now.
- John23832 1y agoWhat consumer does this serve at all? What citizen does this serve at all? This only serves to allow firms to erect effort barriers to keep rent seeking fro their customers. The "gotcha" that the Khan FTC didn't "follow the rules making process" is parallel construction.
- thrance 1y agoIt serves the current administration's in-group: the ultra-wealthy.
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
- whamlastxmas 1y agoGot a surprise for you if you think any admins in group isn’t the ultra wealthy
- XorNot 1y ago"this paper cut is exactly the same as sticking my arm in a wood chipper, which is why I chose the latter..."
- John23832 1y agoI will use this in the future.
- platevoltage 1y ago“It’s like a uniparty bruh”
- pessimizer 1y agoActually Republicans are like demons and Democrats are like angels, which is why their policies are so distinct. I am very sophisticated.
- NoMoreNicksLeft 1y agoI'm not unsympathetic to those who need to cancel a gym membership or whatever. But Congress is too lazy or cowardly to do it themselves, so they delegated, and the courts have been reluctant to allow delegation lately... Congress knows that too. Really though, our banks should be the ones fixing this problem. Do they not work for us? We're more like fee cattle than we are customers. It should be simple to cancel through the bank itself, disallowing further payments. In fact though, the opposite happens. Once one of these vampire scams gets your card number, they can put through payments that you have disallowed and the bank will side with them rather than you. Had an incident with a cell phone company a few years back and the bank decided that they had more say over my money than I did. None of this can be or will be fixed, because you're all distracted by the news media telling you that the evil courts have cheated the heroic FTC bureaucracy, and that you need to vote for the other team to restore balance to the force. If purchasing a service requires your account/routing number, or the card number + cvs code, you really just need to go without.
- fumeux_fume 1y agoI wonder if the decision to forgo the review process was a cynical gamble knowing it would be slow-walked to death or if it was done to score quick points with little concern given to how a legal challenge would play out in the future.
- nashashmi 1y agoELI5: FTC said the rule is a cheap expense on corps. An admin judge says it is quite expensive. FTC is supposed to follow a particular procedure for expensive rules. FTC didn’t follow so judges ruled against the regulation. FTC is better off staying away from regulations and instead making a vague rule prohibiting companies from complicated cancellation processes if they are to be charging recurring fees. The “complicated process” would be subjective but enough to encourage companies to avoid setting up a cancellation process (bypassing the expensive burden rule) and maybe the company then chooses a simpler cancellation option.
- nashashmi 1y ago> The “complicated process” would be subjective but enough to encourage companies to avoid setting up a cancellation process … avoid setting up a complicated cancellation process…
- doitformango 1y agoThis is an even better reason to always use Virtual Credit Cards or Paypal: you can cut off the source of funding with a single click. CapitalOne allows unlimited virtual cards and IT IS AWESOME because you can sidestep PayPal. Man, do Trump supporters actually get excited about awful things like this? I don't get it.
- gmd63 1y agoAnother value destroying milestone of the felon seditionist's megagrift administration It is trivially easy to capture the intent to cancel and allow customers to execute in one click. Any business that does otherwise is actively expending energy to prey upon economic surplus and add to deadweight loss.
- cryptonector 1y agoHe had zero to do with this. This is on Lina Khan.
- gmd63 1y agoHis FTC delayed the implementation of this massively popular rule long enough for these judges and lobbyists to find some rationalization that allows dark patterns to proliferate. If the Trump FTC reissues the rule I'll change my view.
- DrNosferatu 1y agoDon't you just love getting rid of those pesky socialist regulations?
- DrNosferatu 1y ago#irony (unfortunately, this seems necessary here on HN)
- bluetidepro 1y agoSlightly related: For all the crap the iOS store gets for many (good) reasons, this is one reason I actually LOVE to buy subscriptions through iOS/Apple when that option is available for a platform. They have the most simple cancellation process to manage all your subscriptions in one place. Sometimes it costs a $1 or more to buy through iOS but it's worth it to easily cancel without any hoops.
- rochak 1y agoAbsolutely! I’m at a stage where I prefer to buy a subscription via Apple. It’s so simple to cancel. Not to mention how quick Apple is in general refunding any of the wrong/unsatisfactory purchases.
- supertrope 1y agoMy uncle got a surprise $100 credit card charge. He had clicked on a scam pop-up on his Apple iPhone. Somehow that led to installing an app and paying for an annual subscription. One support message to Apple got a refund.
- codedokode 1y agoIn a highly competitive, developed and free US market, why no bank offered this option?
- ApolloFortyNine 1y agoFrom the article >"While we certainly do not endorse the use of unfair and deceptive practices in negative option marketing, the procedural deficiencies of the Commission's rulemaking process are fatal here," As with a lot of judge rulings, and what they're always supposed to do, they ruled on what the actual law is and not just on what sounds good. >The FTC is required to conduct a preliminary regulatory analysis when a rule has an estimated annual economic effect of $100 million or more. The FTC estimated in a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (NPRM) that the rule would not have a $100 million effect. Basically the judges, and a lower court, all agreed that there's no way this rule won't have at last a $100 million in impact, and when something has that much impact there are rules they were meant to follow and didn't. And they rightly commented that if this was allowed to stand, the FTC and every government agency would just always estimate low in these cases.
- marricks 1y agoIt’s a pro business anti consumer supreme court which knows it’d be dangerous to appear that way. Government and court will hamstring their ability to help consumers. My favorite comment on HN was some law student saying his prof said “Scalia is the most complicated supreme court member whose views are always unpredictable” and the commenter said “he’s just a corporate hack who always votes for corporations and backs it up” and sure enough he guessed every ruling correctly.
- pinkmuffinere 1y ago> they rightly commented that if this was allowed to stand, the FTC and every government agency would just always estimate low in these cases. I think you missed this — it isn’t some arbitrary reason to rule in an anti-consumer way. There is good reason to do so. Imo we should keep our checks and balances strong, and this is one small action that does that.
- antonvs 1y ago> Imo we should keep our checks and balances strong I think the tense of this sentence is not quite right. Something more like "Make checks and balances strong again" would work.
- charles_f 1y ago> compliance costs would exceed $100 million "unless each business used fewer than twenty-three hours of professional services at the lowest end of the spectrum of estimated hourly rates," I don't get that. From what I understand the justification is that the economic effect is greater than the $100M bar. But what does the 23h of professional services has to do with anything there? Is the $100M impact judged only on cost of implementation?
- KittenInABox 1y agoI don't understand why corporations can be as malicious and sloppy as they want but actually bringing them to justice requires absolute correctness on every level including bad-faith technicality interpretation.
- 0xedd 1y ago[dead]
- throwaway_323 1y agoScammy companies like apollo.io follow dark patterns to provide several hoops before cancellation, refuse refunds and one click subscribe into an absurd annual contract. This nullification does not serve the best interest of consumers unfortunately.
- henearkr 1y agoShould we understand this as an estimate that the consumers were tricked by difficult-to-cancel (or to opt-out) services for a total of $100 million of grift per year? Then why should we get all emotional about it being blocked by the current legislation? That's an excellent thing that this "profit" was destroyed, it is a net benefit for society indeed.
- Narretz 1y agoI have a crazy suggestion ... maybe Congress should make this a law?! Does Congress still do this outside of insane huge budget bills?
- chairmansteve 1y agoWhatever about the legal minutae, this is a bit of an own goal for the plantiffs. People are becoming more and more wary of signing up for subscriptions.
- liendolucas 1y agoFortunately disposable cards can still be used to unilaterally cancel things out when customers are trapped in a maze trying to escape from getting charged. At the moment this seems to be the most effective mechanism to stop getting robbed. Some people would argue that you might be in trouble for doing this, but honestly when your time and energy is consumed to the point where your blood starts to boil there's really no other alternative. I personally do not consume any online recurring subscriptions for this and many other reasons but is common to read nightmarish stories about attempting to cancel a service without any luck. Hope that things change for the better and courts stop benefiting corporations that do whatever nasty trick have on reach to screw customers.
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]