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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

#661

Post by shiroiushi »

delichon wrote: post #32
onlyrealcuzzo wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Gyms largely make money from people having memberships but never actually going. There's only a few types of gyms where most of the members actually use the gym, and although they're still subscription based, they have entirely different business models.

A friend of mine worked in sales for a big national gym. Not understanding their business model, he proposed a program that would generate some excitement among the membership and bring many of them in daily to participate. It didn't get shot down, it just didn't get any interest at all. When I explained it his eyes went wide, like it was a new idea to him. This strategy doesn't seem to be widely shared even with the…

The gym needs to have a bar making and selling overpriced "health drinks", and also a store selling overpriced merchandise; then getting more people into the gym would actually be profitable.

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

#662

Post by account42 »

photonthug wrote: post #630
theamk wrote: post #554

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I go one step further and for the lists which I don't remember subscribing to, I never click "Unsubscribe" - it's "Spam" right away.

Works great except for the gas company, electric and water company, phone company, airlines, cloud provider, os provider, and everyone else that mixes the 5% of legit business that you can’t afford to ignore or miss with the 95% of marketing content that you want to get rid of. Since it’s usually opaque how “mark as spam” and “block” actually works, and since the origin of the mailing lists can be reconfigured any ti…

Few companies are stupid enough to use the same sender or even domain for marketing and important transactional mail.

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

#663

Post by dspillett »

AnthonyMouse wrote: post #659
dspillett wrote: post #589

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> you do a chargeback, the merchant gets … a chargeback fee … But the merchants respond by banning customers who do this If I've had to do a chargeback, I'm highly unlikely to want to spend further money with that company in future, so they can "ban" me all they like.

But then what's your complaint? That's the status quo.

I didn't complain, as such.

My original post in this trail described how I minimise the risk that I have to faf around because of the status quo, which also reduces the potential for my direct payment data leaking due to security snafus, in the absence of the virtual card option in my locale. The one you replied to questioned one point in your description, which seemed to suggest that being banned by a bad trader was a problem.

Though I'll grant that being blocked could be an issue if that merchant was the only supplier for something that you particularly need.

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

#664

Post by tumblrinaowned »

tumblrinaowned wrote: post #628
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…

Why don't you blame YC for this? They fund and repeatedly promote this AI email slop. There is a startup called AI SDR that send random emails who have no context. Same with Resend. Start at home before blaming others or screaming at the sky.

Oh look. Weasel boys got offended and now complaning to mommy - he was mean.

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

#665

Post by figassis »

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…

In college, likely you subscribed your email (or they sneakily did it for you) as you went through your activities, like student government, on-campus jobs, signing up for classes in different departments, multiple extra curriculars, etc. If those are all designed to be their own entities, just sharing the same domain (and sometimes they're on subdomains), then each is likely claiming the right to susbcribe you to their own list. Should be illegal if they're all affiliated to the same org.

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

#666

Post by ironmagma »

Bjartr wrote: post #356
inetknght wrote: post #348

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I often think about how unreasonably great the regulations around “Unsubscribe” links in emails are. The sheer number of comments that think the state of "unsubscribe" is good is... saddening. I should not have to click a link to "unsubscribe" from something that I did not subscribe to. There's no recourse for me against these thieves.

The state of Unsubscribe is good. Imagine how much worse things would be if legit businesses had no reason to make it easy to unsubscribe in such a consistent way like we do today. That other problems also exist doesn't mean this solution for this thing isn't good.

It's okay. Sometimes when you click the Unsubscribe link you have to enter your email (log in), and sometimes you have to fill out a form, which may or may not be serviceable. There is room for dark patterns here, and dark patterns are used. We're hardly out of the woods with Unsubscribe.

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

#667

Post by morgansmolder »

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…

Bullshit rules are bullshit rules, the fact that something is technically legal doesn't make it morally justifiable. The default assumption of any consumer in a high trust society is that they are going to receive a fair service for the price they pay.

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

#668

Post by raverbashing »

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…

Here's a better way: report as spam

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

#669

Post by high_na_euv »

sickofparadox wrote: post #18
high_na_euv wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How did it even evolve into such a mess? Cannot you just go to random gym, pay for enterance and do ya thing without signing stuff?

The gym I belong to requires both a credit card and bank routing and transfer numbers, on top of like 13 different legal documents. It is the only one I can afford within 10 minutes of my house.

Wtf? Thats crazy

In eastern eu I just enter the gym and purchase daily or monthly ticket

Just like train ticket

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

#670

Post by xnorswap »

ethbr1 wrote: post #455
andrewla wrote: post #414

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The big difference here is that this was created by an act of Congress, not the result of a regulatory body straining at the limits of its remit. That makes it much more likely to survive administration changes or court challenges. Even now the CAN-SPAM act feels outdated -- I do like the unsubscribe button, but I would like to see email verification made explicitly required. That in order to start emailing you, you…

I think we should go back the early web idea and just fractionally charge for email. E.g. $0.001 per email, paid to the recipient Insignificant at personal scale, but a deterrent to sending low-value emails at mass scale, and double-painful when an unbalanced flow (i.e. a spammer who receives no organic email coming in)

Unfortunately that is insignificant at the larger end too.

An accountant would just look at that, figure out the click-through rate and plug it in to weigh it up against the CPM/CTR of equivalent advertising.

And you'd lose any "ethical" arguments against spam. You'd unlock a tidal wave of companies who would now feel justified in spamming because they're paying to do so.

Just as companies don't feel ashamed to bleed adverts into every other waking space.

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