This is great. Never forget the scumbag companies that have been making it frustrating to unsubscribe without this regulation (NY Times, WSJ)
US Government wants to make it easier for you to click the 'unsubscribe' button
121–130 of 217 posts
Re: US Government wants to make it easier for you to click the 'unsubscribe' button
#122Disclosure: I only read up until it was revealed what the policy was. This was always my opinion on this. "As easy to cancel as it is to sign up". It's simple, and completely shuts down this malicious behaviour without making it harder to operate for the honest companies (or worse for customers in any way I can think of). Usually these policies have downsides but I can't really think of any. This kind of behaviour is…
My only concern about this is the signup processes that already take multiple pages anyways.
Take cell phones or internet, I don't have an exact number but I feel like with those given all of the information I have to put in, various agreements, etc etc once my service is in my cart I generally have 3, 4, maybe more pages of stuff to go through.
Is the "as easy to cancel as it is to sign up" showing me the same number of pages trying to convince me to stay?
Sure at least in that case it is still online, but it leaves plenty of room for dark patterns.
Could something that states something as simple as that, just lead to a slightly worse signup process in the hopes that they can then convince customers to stay longer with those dark patterns. It would be a gamble on the companys part, but could pay off.
I realize no law will be perfect, but I worry that something that simple could be abused when it would likely just be better to make a law about unsubscribing in the first place that applies across the board.
Edit:
I was thinking about this more. But what exactly is "as easy to cancel as it is to sign up"? When I sign up for a service I am paying for at a minimum I had to create a username, a password, and put in my credit card. Maybe I had to validate my email and/or phone. Maybe I had to put in my address, validate I was a student, etc etc.
Signing up is not a one click thing, so just stating that neither would canceling.
I get the spirit of saying something like that, but with simplicity I feel like also opens up room for interpretation and it doing nothing to really help except for some extreme cases (like needing to call).
But I also look at my gym membership, I could not sign up until I physically went in or at the very least talked to someone on the phone. That gives them the power to do the exact same thing when I want to cancel.
Re: US Government wants to make it easier for you to click the 'unsubscribe' button
#123Re: hidden fees, I still do not understand why most US purchases treat tax as if it does not exist until you're at the cashier. You have to sort of know what the state tax is (I'm not a US resident, so I do not have that information at hand), and then do the calculation mentally. I think this is quite disfavourable to consumers.
Re: US Government wants to make it easier for you to click the 'unsubscribe' button
#124Earlier quoted context omitted.
What EU-wide law requires it to be as easy to cancel as to sign up? I’m sitting in Germany right now and I’m unaware of any such law - though it might very well be recent and not fully transposed into German law, or might be situational or not widely complied with. It’s a good idea though, absolutely.
We have the regulation in Germany, but afaik it's not EU-wide. The "Gesetz über faire Verbraucherverträge" basically says that if something can be subscribed to easily online, then the company also has to provide an easy unsubscribe. It goes into detail how such a button should look like, how labelled, what data the confirmation page has to list and how fast the confirmation has to be (immediate).
I believe the EU law sets the minimum required conditions for contracts (fair, not abusing the customer), but the individual EU-countries can implement more consumer friendly rules.
Re: US Government wants to make it easier for you to click the 'unsubscribe' button
#125We've had this in California for a couple of years now. It's great! Cancelling subscriptions has been a breeze since it passed.
In fact, a great workaround for anyone else in the USA is to set their home address to California, and then they get the magic unsubscribe button that was otherwise hidden from them.
It is nice to see the administration doing things to help regular people.
Re: US Government wants to make it easier for you to click the 'unsubscribe' button
#126Re: hidden fees, I still do not understand why most US purchases treat tax as if it does not exist until you're at the cashier. You have to sort of know what the state tax is (I'm not a US resident, so I do not have that information at hand), and then do the calculation mentally. I think this is quite disfavourable to consumers.
That's exactly why it's done that way. Because the tax is different in every state, county, city, and sometimes an even smaller region. There is something like 2,500 different tax jurisdictions in the USA.
It would be difficult for national brands (or even local brands) to do any marketing or advertising that includes prices, because they would either have to put a range on their ads, or possibly eat all their profit in some areas if they have the same price everywhere.
With the advent of computers this should be more doable, but the brands also have strong lobbies to keep tax payments seperate.
Re: US Government wants to make it easier for you to click the 'unsubscribe' button
#127Earlier quoted context omitted.
Swedish legislation has it right here. You can unsubscribe by any means you prefer. Mail, email, phone call, a notice in your local newspaper, carrier pigeon. The choice is completely with the party who wishes to terminate the agreement. It incentivises companies to make it as simple as possible, because if they don’t the cost of manually handling requests coming in through all kinds of different channels quickly bec…
> Mail, email, phone call, a notice in your local newspaper, carrier pigeon. How would that even... work? Doesn't this obligate every company to read every local newspaper in every customer's area? And a customer who feels like a company a hard time could just put a notice in the paper and then collect money because the company obviously won't read every newspaper? Also, what about companies wanting to give customers…
Just what you receive, i'd assume. Where reception is a legal definition.
Essentially when a reasonable third party can be said to have received.
In English legal systems attached terms and conditions work the same way, with regard to receiving them.
Re: US Government wants to make it easier for you to click the 'unsubscribe' button
#128What is the shopping cart service that follows me around the web, where if I put something in a cart, then walk away I get email about it. Without even signing in, often it’s a new to me retailer, but they use one of those cart nagging checkout services? Can I turn that off?
> Can I turn that off?
Clear cookies when you're done browsing.
Re: US Government wants to make it easier for you to click the 'unsubscribe' button
#129Cable and mobile plans first and foremost. Those are the worst offenders by far.
Re: US Government wants to make it easier for you to click the 'unsubscribe' button
#130Re: hidden fees, I still do not understand why most US purchases treat tax as if it does not exist until you're at the cashier. You have to sort of know what the state tax is (I'm not a US resident, so I do not have that information at hand), and then do the calculation mentally. I think this is quite disfavourable to consumers.
By ignoring it until checkout it lets vendors put lower prices on the shelf which encourages more spending. It is intentionally disfavorable to consumers.