Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

US Government wants to make it easier for you to click the 'unsubscribe' button

apnews.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

191–200 of 217 posts

Re: US Government wants to make it easier for you to click the 'unsubscribe' button

#191

Post by litenboll »

nerdjon wrote: post #122
litenboll wrote: post #28

Disclosure: 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 numbe…

Yeah I agree with this, it's a very good point. Of course a real law needs more narrow wording. The spirit of it should be more about not allowing companies to have different means for subscribing and unsubscribing. Then there can be additional rules that prevent them from convoluting the process more than necessary.

Re: US Government wants to make it easier for you to click the 'unsubscribe' button

#192

Post by intended »

nerdjon wrote: post #122
litenboll wrote: post #28

Disclosure: 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 numbe…

I think this counts as over thinking. Unsubscribing is MILES harder in many countries. The unsubscribe link is buried in some unknown sub menu, customer support dumps you, or the like.

Trying to fatigue someone out of subscribing is a bad business model. If people want to leave, it should be dead simple to do so.

Re: US Government wants to make it easier for you to click the 'unsubscribe' button

#193

Post by reginald78 »

mau013 wrote: post #177
tialaramex wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is a reason to invest in this, the rationale goes as follows: Some of my customers will legitimately need to cancel, unsubscribe, stop using, or whatever, but they like the product. If I piss these customers off, they may recommend against using it, and refuse to ever use it again so I should accept that they're leaving with grace and maybe they'll return later. You can offer to "pause" a subscription for examp…

This. In my case I enjoy reading The Economist and do not mind paying for it, but some years back I had to cancel my subscription (I was cutting back on expenses) and honestly I found that experience so much against the business values they preach that it has made me not subscribe again, even if it means not reading their publication. (Every few years I go to check if they have made it easier to unsubscribe, but last…

I avoid subscription services like the plague because of this (and other reasons).

I can't know if they're going to do this kind of crap until it is to late. Even if some one reviewed services for this they could change at any time for the worse. So I just assume it will happen and try to limit getting into that bad arrangement as much as possible.

Re: US Government wants to make it easier for you to click the 'unsubscribe' button

#194

Post by reginald78 »

criddell wrote: post #10
jwally wrote: post #4

Can't recommend privacy.com enough for literally this use case. If I have to spend more than five minutes trying to figure out how to cancel - I'm just turning off my card...

I think most of the times that works and companies don't pursue the small amounts, but turning off the card doesn't actually end the agreement between you and the company. It could end up on your credit report.

I haven't used privacy.com but I recall some one saying you can put whatever name you want on the service, which sounded implausible to me. On the other hand, a prepaid debit card can do the same thing so maybe it was true. Obviously this wouldn't work for all services though.

Re: US Government wants to make it easier for you to click the 'unsubscribe' button

#195

Post by tracker1 »

litenboll wrote: post #28

Disclosure: 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…

Until they require you to dig out your CC and input the number and the cvv code to cancel, which shouldn't be needed, but hey, it's "as easy" as signing up. ;-)

Oh, sorry, that's not the card you signed up with... what do you mean you don't have the card that expired last year that rolled over when you signed up?

Re: US Government wants to make it easier for you to click the 'unsubscribe' button

#196

Post by [deleted] »

mostlysimilar wrote: post #139
bcherny wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unless you’re an iPhone user and it’s a promotional email from Apple, in which case there is no way to unsubscribe (“3 free months of Apple Arcade!”)..

That's not a subscription you're cancelling though? Isn't this law about cancelling a subscription, not about ads/"promotional email"?

[deleted]

Re: US Government wants to make it easier for you to click the 'unsubscribe' button

#197

Post by tracker1 »

organsnyder wrote: post #92
noneeeed wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What gets me is that I'm way more likely to return to or recommend a service that I know I can easily cancel. Most of the streaming services are pretty good for this and I'm much happier returning to them because of that and will happily recommend them. I remember signing up to Which? (a bit like Consumer Reports but in the UK), and cancelling my account was so f-ing hard that I will never sign up again, ever, and I…

I cancelled my Jetbrains subscription a while back because I wasn't using any of their products for my current work. They made the process so easy that I will consider going back to them in a heartbeat when I next have need of their offerings.

Similar experience after my second marriage ended with cancelling Netflix... I didn't even mind their once a quarter "we're still here" emails. Too many will spam you multiple times a week on top of being painful to cancel.

I'd never again do XM/Serious without a single-use credit card. Took 5 phone calls (oops, disconnected) and 3+ hours on hold to cancel. I only wanted to cancel the one car I no longer had, after that experience I cancelled them all.

Re: US Government wants to make it easier for you to click the 'unsubscribe' button

#198

Post by bcherny »

mostlysimilar wrote: post #139
bcherny wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unless you’re an iPhone user and it’s a promotional email from Apple, in which case there is no way to unsubscribe (“3 free months of Apple Arcade!”)..

That's not a subscription you're cancelling though? Isn't this law about cancelling a subscription, not about ads/"promotional email"?

That’s fair — Apple might be in violation of CAN-SPAM, but not the proposed law.

Re: US Government wants to make it easier for you to click the 'unsubscribe' button

#199

Post by butz »

How about making it harder to subscribe with email address that you do not own? Some silly sausage is using my email address while shopping and I am receiving their clothing receipts. I am still convinced, that clicking "unsubscribe" only provides information that email address is used and that leads to even more spam from even more unusual places. E.g. fake dating websites, where new one is created almost each month just to be replaced by another. And they keep sending a lot of spam.

Re: US Government wants to make it easier for you to click the 'unsubscribe' button

#200

Post by itopaloglu83 »

I think it should’ve been worded as “easier than signing up” not as easy as. Companies will now make you go through 5 different simple pages so that they can make the account deletion harder.

I think the easier solution is to let individuals sue these companies for their time. You sent me X spam emails or made me spend Y hours to cancel, so pay me Z thousand dollars for inconvenience. Once the financial incentive of putting people into black design patterns is removed, the practice will quickly disappear.

Post reply on HN