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

FTC announces "click-to-cancel" rule making it easier to cancel subscriptions

ftc.gov

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

391–400 of 793 posts

Re: FTC announces "click-to-cancel" rule making it easier to cancel subscriptions

#391

Post by inetknght »

maccard wrote: post #373
inetknght wrote: post #353

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I immediately mark them as "spam". Ahh yes, the feel-good response that Google gives you without doing anything substantial to prevent spam from reaching you in the future.

My experience with the spam button is 1) they never ever go into my inbox again if they do keep sending, and 2) as someone who has had emails marked as spam (from people who actively clicked the sign up to my newsletter button) your ability to send email gets neutered pretty quickly. What is your experience?

> What is your experience?

Reporting spam does not block the email from being received by my client -- it only blocks the mail from being seen in the inbox, but it still shows up in the spam box.

I don't send mail that gets reported as spam in the first place. Or, if it does, then I haven't been meaningfully affected because I can still send and receive the email I want to.

Re: FTC announces "click-to-cancel" rule making it easier to cancel subscriptions

#392

Post by bearjaws »

Uehreka wrote: post #190

When people try and say that regulating stuff like this is impossible, I often think about how unreasonably great the regulations around “Unsubscribe” links in emails are. There really seems to be no loophole or workaround despite there being huge incentive for there to be one. Every time I click an “Unsubscribe” link in an email (it seems like they’re forced to say “Unsubscribe” and not use weasel words to hide the…

... Except it clearly works and I've unsubscribed from 99% of emails without ever going to their site?

Re: FTC announces "click-to-cancel" rule making it easier to cancel subscriptions

#393

Post by janalsncm »

battle-racket wrote: post #244
amatecha wrote: post #67

Nice. I canceled a service recently and I had to "continue to cancel" and click on other such "confirmations" such that I think I proceeded through 7-8 pages before my subscription was actually canceled. Truly manipulative and obtuse. That was Spotify btw. I should have recorded the process, as it was nearly comedic (if it weren't so hostile).

At least they didn't make you make a phone call and have a rep try to prevent you from doing so for an hour (looking at you NYT).

AAA also makes you cancel over the phone during business hours.

Re: FTC announces "click-to-cancel" rule making it easier to cancel subscriptions

#394

Post by inetknght »

lazyasciiart wrote: post #384
inetknght wrote: post #378

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> So what, people should only be able to email you if you've previously emailed them? No, people should be able to email me as they would normally. I should be able to block senders, or entire domains. To use a direct example: if I decide that substack is shit because they subscribe people without consent (which is exactly true), then I should be able to block all things from substack and not just a single email addr…

> then the spammer should be legally and monetarily liable for the time and money wasted You might want to start by addressing physical mail, or advertising billboards, if you want to radically overhaul some of the fundamentals of society.

> You might want to start by addressing physical mail, or advertising billboards, if you want to radically overhaul some of the fundamentals of society.

It's on my todo list. The amount of incessant spam, that's legally protected by the USPS, is astonishing.

Re: FTC announces "click-to-cancel" rule making it easier to cancel subscriptions

#395

Post by rootusrootus »

darkhelmet wrote: post #351
rootusrootus wrote: post #223

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> before taxes Now they just need to fix that part.

Right up front: I agree. But, implementing this will be an absolute PITA because so many other things are systemically broken. Case in point: cost breakdown from the invoice of an online order a few months ago (with the dollar amounts removed): > Subtotal > Shipping (Economy) > Tax (Solano County Tax 0.25%) > Tax (Vacaville City Tax 0.75%) > Tax (Solano County District Tax Sp 0.125%) > Tax (Solano Co Local Tax Sl 1.0…

I agree, it is not currently feasible in all cases. But something like AirBNB should be straightforward. Price tags on store shelves also straightforward. As you point out, it's tough for online shopping, at least until you have an established account. For advertising purposes it would be tough.

My guess is the only solution (and it would suck and be met with much resistance) would be to make all the taxes based strictly on where the seller is, not where the buyer is. Then the buyer would have to be on hook for use tax instead of sales tax. States would not like this because most people skip paying use tax altogether.

Or just get rid of sales tax as a thing, and if you want localized taxes put them on property. That's what my state does (plus income tax).

I agree that we're unlikely to see any sane solution in the US in our lifetime.

Re: FTC announces "click-to-cancel" rule making it easier to cancel subscriptions

#396

Post by Beijinger »

I want this "click-to-cancel" rule for any form of subscription. Everybody tries to bill you into oblivion. You must be insane if you don't use virtual credit card numbers today. I am apartment hunting right now. Most apartments don't exist and some Nigerian scammers try to make you request a "credit report" that is basically a subscription service and really difficult to cancel.

Re: FTC announces "click-to-cancel" rule making it easier to cancel subscriptions

#397

Post by inetknght »

kemitche wrote: post #367
inetknght wrote: post #353

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I immediately mark them as "spam". Ahh yes, the feel-good response that Google gives you without doing anything substantial to prevent spam from reaching you in the future.

What makes you say that? In my experience, the spam button works fantastically. There is a gym of some kind that has me on their mailing list, refuses to honor unsubscribe, and sends me probably 2-6 emails a month. They've been doing this for years, but Google correctly gets every single one into spam because I marked one (several?) as spam years ago. Most, if not all, political junk email also ends up in my spam fol…

> They've been doing this for years, but Google correctly gets every single one into spam because I marked one (several?) as spam years ago.

I've had numerous "businesses" that I've reported spam end up back in my gmail inbox after years.

I've stopped using gmail because of it not iterating on spam blocking capabilities.

Re: FTC announces "click-to-cancel" rule making it easier to cancel subscriptions

#398

Post by arrosenberg »

llm_nerd wrote: post #368
megiddo wrote: post #309

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mean, maybe technically. But the "its yearly with a cancellation fee" was not qualified in the sales information on the sign-up page. Maybe it was in the fine print. Given that customers are quite used to a monthly fee is a monthly subscription model, it was disingenuous at best. Putting significant terms in the fine print doesn't exactly engender trust.

https://imgur.com/a/ldhiEtf There is no fine print. It is extremely clear and obvious. If you see a term called "Annual paid monthly", 33% less expensive than a monthly option right above, what possible other interpretation can someone have?

I think they clarified it more recently, because the FTC is taking a separate action against them on this specific issue. I doubt there would have been much of an issue if it had been that clear in the first place.

https://natlawreview.com/article/ftc-targets-adobe-hidden-fe...

Re: FTC announces "click-to-cancel" rule making it easier to cancel subscriptions

#399

Post by xracy »

Spoom wrote: post #5

Does the FTC actually have the power to set rules like this effectively now that Chevron deference isn't a thing? I'd imagine e.g. the New York Times, among others, will quickly sue to stop this, no?

We gotta stop giving SCOTUS credit for bad decisions when they make unpopular opinions. SCOTUS is not supposed to make legislation, and if they are going to try and override Chevron from the bench without legislation, then we have to ignore them.

SCOTUS' power/respect only goes as far as they're actually listening to the will of Americans. This is not representing Americans if they override. Same for abortion (just legality not anything about enforcement), same for presidential immunity.

We have expectations, and they do not align with SCOTUS, so SCOTUS is not a valid interpretive institution. "The Supreme Court has made their decision, let's see them enforce it."

Re: FTC announces "click-to-cancel" rule making it easier to cancel subscriptions

#400

Post by crazygringo »

Beijinger wrote: post #396

I want this "click-to-cancel" rule for any form of subscription. Everybody tries to bill you into oblivion. You must be insane if you don't use virtual credit card numbers today. I am apartment hunting right now. Most apartments don't exist and some Nigerian scammers try to make you request a "credit report" that is basically a subscription service and really difficult to cancel.

> You must be insane if you don't use virtual credit card numbers today.

Virtual numbers protect against people stealing your number. They don't really do much against subscriptions.

If you sign up for a service and stop paying, it gets sent to collections, and then impacts your credit score because of unpaid debt. Whether you used a virtual number or not is irrelevant.

So it's not "insane" not to use virtual credit card numbers. To the contrary, it's just not usually worth the hassle. The few times my number got stolen and fraudulently used over the past two decades, I called and the transactions got reversed immediately. And those all happened after I used my card physically anyways, not online, so virtual numbers wouldn't have helped anyways.

Post reply on HN