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US Court nullifies FTC requirement for click-to-cancel

arstechnica.com

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

#461

Post by MangoToupe »

dmoy wrote: post #329
MangoToupe wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If I tried that with my gym, they would send me to collections. Let them. I don't know why people let services abuse them like this.

> I don't know why people let services abuse them like this. One reason is that the negative impact on your credit may end up costing you thousands and thousands of dollars if you e.g. need to get a mortgage

Ok? It's worth self-sacrifice to push back against practices hostile to humanity, like credit. But conforming over a fucking gym membership just strikes me as spineless.

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

#462

Post by Buttons840 »

ApolloFortyNine wrote: post #346

From the article >"While we certainly do not endorse the use of unfair and deceptive practices in negative option marketing, the procedural deficiencies of the Commission's rulemaking process are fatal here," As with a lot of judge rulings, and what they're always supposed to do, they ruled on what the actual law is and not just on what sounds good. >The FTC is required to conduct a preliminary regulatory analysis wh…

While the courts, supposedly, focus on what the law actually says, remember that Wickard v Filburn (1942) established that growing a plant on your own property for your own personal use is "interstate commerce".

I don't know a lot about law, but I at least know that ruling on what the "actual law is" is selective, and usually selective in a way that is beneficial for the rich and powerful.

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

#463

Post by dubcanada »

pbh101 wrote: post #351
trueismywork wrote: post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In contrast in EU, I sent an email to my service to cancel and they forgot to cancel. I just sent them another email with proof of email and they realised they missed the old one and canceled retroactively and refunded money to my account.

This has not been my experience cancelling eu services.

Care to expand beyond a meaningless statement? What has your experience been?

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

#464

Post by supertrope »

bluetidepro wrote: post #337

Slightly related: For all the crap the iOS store gets for many (good) reasons, this is one reason I actually LOVE to buy subscriptions through iOS/Apple when that option is available for a platform. They have the most simple cancellation process to manage all your subscriptions in one place. Sometimes it costs a $1 or more to buy through iOS but it's worth it to easily cancel without any hoops.

My uncle got a surprise $100 credit card charge. He had clicked on a scam pop-up on his Apple iPhone. Somehow that led to installing an app and paying for an annual subscription. One support message to Apple got a refund.

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

#465

Post by vkou »

crims0n wrote: post #436
okanat wrote: post #396

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a persistent stupid take but many HN readers are also on the wrong side of the consumer protection. Those startups don't make money out of thin air eh? Once again. The full consumer protection would be banning behavior-based advertisement completely, which I would welcome. GDPR is striking a balance. It forces the companies to ask if they are going to collect data and use it in any other purpose from deliveri…

Plenty of well-meaning laws have unintended consequences. Intent does not absolve being the cause of the effect.

This consequence is 100% intended to fuck with the UX of your website, if your business model is tracking users.

And it accomplishes that goal. A lot of people on this forum are quite unhappy about it, but that's not because it's an unforeseen consequence.

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

#466

Post by [deleted] »

dontlikeyoueith wrote: post #355
rayiner wrote: post #242

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Courts don’t make decisions on whether executive rules are told or bad, serve consumers or not. The main oversight they have is ensuring compliance with procedural rules and statutory technicalities.

> Courts don’t make decisions on whether executive rules are told or bad, serve consumers or not This is just an obvious lie. They're not supposed to, but they obviously do. Usually against common citizens' interest.

[deleted]

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

#467

Post by skeletal88 »

okanat wrote: post #404
mrtksn wrote: post #193

Earlier quoted context omitted.

True but generally speaking American companies usually have much better customer service and better refund policies than European ones. The issues usually stem when a company corners the market or has no viable alternatives. So maybe the American way of doing things can also work if a healthy competitive environment is preserved. The problem lately is that American companies have become monopolies and the formula fir…

In Germany companies have to have 14 days, no questions asked return for products and services ordered online. If they don't accept it, you can report to a consumer protection agency and sue the company.

This is everywhere in Europe

So it is sometimes better to buy stuff online, because the reasoning is that you haven't seen or tried them, but when you buy it in a physical shop, then you were aware what you bough and can't claim that you couldn't check the colour of a thing or how it fit you or whatever else reason you can think of.

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

#468

Post by gmd63 »

sebzim4500 wrote: post #437
gmd63 wrote: post #429

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't buy that argument. The issue is companies deliberately built complexity on top of their existing systems to make it harder to cancel. The added complexity that costs a lot of money to fix is a result of their unfair and deceptive practices. An enormous amount of deadweight loss would be returned to the economy if they simply implemented a much simpler design of click to cancel and avoided the unfair and decep…

Isn't the argument that making it easier to cancel subscriptions means that more customers will cancel and the cumulative effect across the industry will be much more than $100M?

Why would anyone be concerned with the industry vs the economy? Especially when it’s an industry engaged in foul play?

Any dollar “lost” as a result of customers being able to cancel results in customers gaining more money to empower industries that are actually productive.

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

#469

Post by hiAndrewQuinn »

GolfPopper wrote: post #410
hiAndrewQuinn wrote: post #359

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not legalized thievery to make it nonfree to exit a contract you voluntarily signed up for in the first place. That's ridiculous and hyperbolic. People do it all the time, at all levels of scale and severity. You might as well take issue with the US government not having a "click to cancel" option on NATO or something.

A contract requires a 'meeting of the minds'. Artificially inflating the practicalities of canceling (exiting the contract in accordance with the contract) so as to extract more money from one party fails that test. This isn't about cancellation fees, a fixed-term commitment, or anything of the sort. It's agreeing that "you can cancel by filling out the form" without mentioning that to get the form you need to climb…

Of course this is about cancellation fees. There are so many companies which specialize in hiring leopard tamers to go down into those very basements, photocopy those very forms, and sell them at the front door for a nominal fee. They're like 20% of all my YouTube ads.

You're always paying a fee somewhere to hedge against cancellation risk somewhere in the system. There is no free lunch. It's either going to be in the asking price or at the tail end. You can force everyone to raise their asking price and hence price millions of people out of Netflix for every $1/month you go up, or you can let people self-select.

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

#470

Post by hiAndrewQuinn »

TheCoelacanth wrote: post #414
hiAndrewQuinn wrote: post #359

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not legalized thievery to make it nonfree to exit a contract you voluntarily signed up for in the first place. That's ridiculous and hyperbolic. People do it all the time, at all levels of scale and severity. You might as well take issue with the US government not having a "click to cancel" option on NATO or something.

If it was an actual contract that you signed, then I might agree, but this is just clicking a button on a website. That type of "contract" should be sharply limited in what terms it can include.

It is generally an actual contract. When you sign up for a service like Netflix, you are agreeing to a legally binding document, outlined in a document commonly known as "Terms of Use" or "Terms of Service." To artificially limit this contract would be to impede freedom of trade, which generally leaves everyone worse off, not better.
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