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

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

#591

Post by metadat »

rootusrootus wrote: post #333
susanthenerd wrote: post #253

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Services like this are the reason I prefer to pay thru google play. It is much easier to just cancel it

As much as I used to hate them, I've now gained an appreciation for PayPal for this kind of stuff. For when I don't want to give my credit card to yet another vendor to possibly be compromised, or manage a sketchy subscription, PayPal is a pretty good solution. I do prefer Apple, but not every subscription can be bought that way.

I recommend privacy.com. It's bulletproof. Single use card? Check. Merchant-locked? Check. You are in control. It costs $0.

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

#592

Post by codersfocus »

dccoolgai wrote: post #547
AnthonyMouse wrote: post #522

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not the first time, you're just patronizing the news outlets that tell you when the Republicans do something untoward but not when the Democrats do instead of the ones that do the opposite. Also, as a general rule politicians will carve themselves an exemption to any rules they put on everyone else. For example, CAN SPAM applies to commercial email.

No, from Super PACS (they were the Citizens United in _Citizens United_) to gerrymandering the Republicans do it first and worst. It's not even close. It's nice to think "both sides" but it's misinformed.

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

#593

Post by fasa99 »

justinpombrio wrote: post #265
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…

Unsubscribe links are a fantastic regulation, but there is a workaround. I must have received at least a dozen emails from Brown after graduating despite unsubscribing to every email they sent. The trouble is they're endlessly creative about the lists they put you on. I'd get one email from "Alumni Connections" and then another from "Faculty Spotlight" and then another from "Global Outreach" and then another from "Ev…

> I hope this was in violation of the regulation: surely you can't invent a new mailing list that didn't used to exist, add me to it, and require me to unsubscribe from it individually.

Exactly, this is the core of the problem. Thought I am grateful for the "unsubscribe" option... I am putridly disgusted by the humiliation of unsubscribing to something I never subscribed to in the first place. It's just awkward and sleazy all around. Put simply : if a name is to be added to such a list, it shall require the consent of said person a priori, a new consent must be made per each list, with blanket future consent strictly banned, and secondly mass solicitations for consent also banned.

To those of you who live in California, I expect many, I would advise in these cases to invoke the CCPA act i.e. (a) "give me all the data you have on me" (b) "delete all the data you have on me". You need to ask (a) first, then given that, then ask (b). If you imply you want the data deleted, they will just delete it and say "oopsie we can't provide you the data", so it's important to perform this sequential order. If Californians did this at mass scale I would imagine there would be a lot of positive bleedover to other states in limiting this behavior.

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

#594

Post by the_gorilla »

inetknght wrote: post #394
lazyasciiart wrote: post #384

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

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

#595

Post by mcmcmc »

inetknght wrote: post #391
maccard wrote: post #373

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

If you actually want to block emails, you need an email security gateway or some control over inbound anti-spam policies (ie pay for Google Workspace or another email service). Consumer email is not intended to give you full control.

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

#596

Post by HDThoreaun »

danaris wrote: post #485
HDThoreaun wrote: post #271

Earlier quoted context omitted.

None of those things should be included. I want none and dont want to pay for having access to them. What we actually need is a business that lets you put in the add ons you want and shows you how much that would cost.

That's a very "I got mine" type of attitude. You think everyone should be expected to pay extra not to - fly with nothing but the clothes on their back - separated from their family - with no food or drink, on a 5, 10, 15-hour flight - with no leg or elbow room - and no pillow or blanket to make it even vaguely possible to sleep?

I am happy with the current situation. Airlines are segmented so that people like me can fly spirit or frontier for rock bottom rates and people who want to enjoy the flight can fly delta or whoever.

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

#597

Post by xracy »

AnthonyMouse wrote: post #544
xracy wrote: post #443

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm advocating for a balance of powers. Which is why I'm quoting a precedented action by a president. Right now the SCOTUS is grabbing a lot of power for itself that has been delegated to the executive branch by congress in accordance with Chevron deference. You call out yourself that the judges are essentially creating law. (presidential immunity and abortion both are just bonkers decisions based on thoughts and fee…

Chevron deference wasn't created by Congress, it was created by SCOTUS to begin with. It was an interpretive rule that essentially said the courts should favor the interpretation of the executive branch over that of members of the public wanting to challenge it. Under both the previous and current rule, if Congress doesn't like the resulting interpretation they can pass a new bill. The main difference is that now une…

> Chevron deference wasn't created by Congress

Yeah, but they could've overturned it if they didn't like it.

> The main difference is that now unelected judges decide how to interpret the law instead of unelected administrative officials. But that's what judges do.

This is a huge difference you kinda skip over. Should the policies and regulations of 100s of industries be decided by:

1. People who are only familiar with court proceedings 2. Experts in those industries with experience in those industries

One of those things is meaningfully worse, because we're going to get a ton of "armchair experts" on culture war issues who have no idea about what's happening on the ground, and just have their own culture-war opinion that ignores the nuance of the situation.

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

#598

Post by the_gorilla »

pc86 wrote: post #566
the_gorilla wrote: post #220

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Gyms are notorious shysters who made it difficult to cancel your membership, even when you have the right. Don't blame the consumers for this bullshit. Do as many chargebacks as you can.

Don't sign an agreement to do something you don't want to do. It's as simple as that. It's not "blaming the consumers" for expecting people to follow the terms of contracts they sign. I never had a Gold's Gym membership for exactly this reason - their cancellation terms were onerous, I wasn't interested in complying, so I never signed and never gave them any money. If you say "well, I don't want to do that, but I'm j…

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

#599

Post by xracy »

minkzilla wrote: post #562
xracy wrote: post #399

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 l…

I don't agree with overruling Chevron but saying "if they are going to try and override Chevron from the bench without legislation, then we have to ignore them" makes no sense because Chevron was not made by legislation in the first place. It was made by SCOTUS. It comes from the case Chevron U.S.A., Inc. v. Natural Resources Defense Council, Inc.

I'm pretty sure Chevron deference includes some deferred powers of congress to presidential administrative agencies. Which is what I'm referring to here. I could be wrong about that.

But the rules I'm thinking of are more about Roe V. Wade, which don't make sense in their interpretation of the laws.

It also goes to the heart of the arbitrariness of the rulings if they can overturn previous precedent 'just because they want to' which is a lot of the logic of the rulings.

Brown v. Board is famous for not just overturning the precedent, but for giving a reasonable understanding of the precedent was meaningfully unfair in the previous setup.

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

#600

Post by inetknght »

jacobgkau wrote: post #516
maccard wrote: post #418

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m not sure what you expect to happen? > I don't send mail that gets reported as spam in the first place. I ran a newsletter where people had to opt in to receiving it. It was announce news for a video game. You only ended up on this list if you entered your email, clicked join list, and then clicked the link in the email we sent to you to confirm subscription. We had a big unsubscribe button at the very top of the…

> I’m not sure what you expect to happen? They're probably expecting their email provider to take that info and use it somewhere upstream of their own individual account. Which, as you've pointed out, does happen. Maybe they don't believe that it happens often enough or something, but the thresholds do need to be reasonably high since, as you pointed out, some people hit the button whether it's justified or not. If t…

> They're probably expecting their email provider to take that info and use it somewhere upstream of their own individual account.

Report spam, as a generic feature? It's an okay starting point "as-is" but useless for preventing malicious use and it hasn't meaningfully improved since launch.

Specifically for google: allow users to block whole domains; I can already do that on my own mailserver, why can't I do that on Google's? Then, block mail from foreign countries -- or at least countries that I don't care about; I can block whole ASNs on my mailserver, why can't I on Google's? That then leaves only mail that I can bring legal action to.

Another iteration: when you "unsubscribe", then keep a record of it, and also show the history of emails that you've received from them on a confirmation dialog. Show me anything interesting like purchases, warranties, appointments, etc. When confirmed, keep a record of it. Show me a list of _all_ of the things I've unsubscribed from. If email is still received, automatic report spam and block the domain. Oh, that means that mailing lists must come from the same domain that sales are made on.

Another iteration: a subscription should require a confirmation. Let the email server recognize the confirmation, and block emails whose unsubscribe links aren't in the list of confirmations. That means an unsubscription link should go to the same domain that a subscription was confirmed on.

That's just a few spitballed ideas. Spam reporting functionality is clearly iterable, but it hasn't meaningfully changed for decades. It's still primarily done through opaque "reputation" scores and little else.

I don't want "report spam" which doesn't give me feedback and continues to let spam onto the wire to my client, and isn't powerful enough to use to block bad actors from trivially getting to my inbox. I don't want to be expected to (and trained to) click on unverified links which take me to somewhere I don't recognize, and could take me somewhere malicious. I expect more from the largest email provider(s) in the world.

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