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US Court nullifies FTC requirement for click-to-cancel

arstechnica.com

381–390 of 599 posts

Re: US Court nullifies FTC requirement for click-to-cancel

#381
post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What about subscriptions where you agreed to a long-term subscription (e.g. for a discounted rate)?

Those are usually charged once per agreed period (never seen it any other way)

Cell phone plans often charge monthly but can be years long contracts.

Re: US Court nullifies FTC requirement for click-to-cancel

#382
post #318

What consumer does this serve at all? What citizen does this serve at all? This only serves to allow firms to erect effort barriers to keep rent seeking fro their customers. The "gotcha" that the Khan FTC didn't "follow the rules making process" is parallel construction.

If you actually bother to click through and read the article, you'd find the court expressed sympathies with the intent of the rule, but the FTC "is required to conduct a preliminary regulatory analysis when a rule has an estimated annual economic effect of $100 million or more", and they did not do that. The blame here belongs to the FTC for its rushed and sloppy process that put the rule on shaky ground legally.

Why are you carrying water for this?

The FTC didn’t make that rule.

Who do you think created that rule that anything that lost money for advertisers? I’ll give you one guess

The fact that you’re indignant that someone doesn’t agree with the argument is absolutely absurd.

The law/rule constraint was corrupt from the outset in order to provide multiple avenues for capital to ensure they don’t lose their profits.

Re: US Court nullifies FTC requirement for click-to-cancel

#383
post #318

What consumer does this serve at all? What citizen does this serve at all? This only serves to allow firms to erect effort barriers to keep rent seeking fro their customers. The "gotcha" that the Khan FTC didn't "follow the rules making process" is parallel construction.

If you actually bother to click through and read the article, you'd find the court expressed sympathies with the intent of the rule, but the FTC "is required to conduct a preliminary regulatory analysis when a rule has an estimated annual economic effect of $100 million or more", and they did not do that. The blame here belongs to the FTC for its rushed and sloppy process that put the rule on shaky ground legally.

> you'd find the court expressed sympathies with the intent of the rule

And you'd find such sentiments to be completely worthless, except insofar as they act as cover for a ruling on a technicality in favor of the same corporate interests that fund the politicians that appointed these judges.

Re: US Court nullifies FTC requirement for click-to-cancel

#384

What consumer does this serve at all? What citizen does this serve at all? This only serves to allow firms to erect effort barriers to keep rent seeking fro their customers. The "gotcha" that the Khan FTC didn't "follow the rules making process" is parallel construction.

The standard capitalist response would be, it serves the consumer of a service who wouldn't be willing to pay more for the additional guarantee of click-to-cancel. It doesn't seem that farfetched to me to imagine two sites offering equivalent services, one at $5/month and the other at $6/month, with the only difference being the $6/month site offers click to cancel. This dollar price difference is often the differenc…

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Re: US Court nullifies FTC requirement for click-to-cancel

#385

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Adobe is an example where a yearly discounted subscription is billed monthly

They'll have to change their model or implement like a breakup fee depending of what would has been missed if you didn't have a discount.

Creating a "stop subscription" button within a bank/credit card interface but allowing companies to charge a breakup fee when that gets pressed seems like a recipe for a lot of people to get whacked by big breakup fees they didn't know about.

Re: US Court nullifies FTC requirement for click-to-cancel

#386
post #140

The consumer protection laws are so bad the other side of Atlantic. Most European countries, have their own version of consumer protection agencies, usually any kind of complaint gets sorted out, even if takes a couple months. If they fail for whatever reason, there is still the top European one. Most of the time I read about FTC, it appears to side with the wrong guys.

At the same time European laws got whole internet littered with "Accept cookies" banners

Re: US Court nullifies FTC requirement for click-to-cancel

#387
Should we understand this as an estimate that the consumers were tricked by difficult-to-cancel (or to opt-out) services for a total of $100 million of grift per year?

Then why should we get all emotional about it being blocked by the current legislation?

That's an excellent thing that this "profit" was destroyed, it is a net benefit for society indeed.

Re: US Court nullifies FTC requirement for click-to-cancel

#388
post #369
post #342

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Depends on how accurate you think the >$100 million estimated impact from the lower court is. When the FTC did the analysis they came up with a lower impact so they didn't have to do it. I'd be more willing to believe they got it right than a single judge did.

Why would this have any economic impact? These dark patterns don't generate any net value, they just move money from one pocket to another. The money will be spent somewhere else, instead.

The economic impact here is only factoring in how much it would cost companies to comply with the measure which is inherently designed to give an extra hurdle by not counting the money saved by consumers not trapped by dark cancellation patterns.

Re: US Court nullifies FTC requirement for click-to-cancel

#389
post #318

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you actually bother to click through and read the article, you'd find the court expressed sympathies with the intent of the rule, but the FTC "is required to conduct a preliminary regulatory analysis when a rule has an estimated annual economic effect of $100 million or more", and they did not do that. The blame here belongs to the FTC for its rushed and sloppy process that put the rule on shaky ground legally.

Why are you carrying water for this? The FTC didn’t make that rule. Who do you think created that rule that anything that lost money for advertisers? I’ll give you one guess The fact that you’re indignant that someone doesn’t agree with the argument is absolutely absurd. The law/rule constraint was corrupt from the outset in order to provide multiple avenues for capital to ensure they don’t lose their profits.

Tidy logical explanations of rule systems that click for people are very powerful when they come from authority. There’s a comfort in this sort of bureaucracy that appears to have taken broad considerations to protect us from complex dangers and second order effects.

Re: US Court nullifies FTC requirement for click-to-cancel

#390
post #376

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If that request is a trap then you have basically made my point for me I guess.

If you believe the judges are all being as objective as possible and that the systemic flaws in our judicial system are not being exploited by the Trump admin/lawyers representing the Trump admin without pushback from said judges than you can’t be convinced by me. I can cite an example, and if you aren’t personally convinced you can simply say “the court of law said x was innocent or y was held liable” or whatever yo…

Is your entire position that government doesn't work so we should get rid of it? Or do you have proposals for actual ways to improve it?
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