US Court nullifies FTC requirement for click-to-cancel • Hacker News Board

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

#541

Post by Glyptodon » Thu, Jul 10, 2025, 4:26 AM UTC

cortesoft wrote: post #441

Glyptodon wrote: post #412

Earlier quoted context omitted.

$100 million or more rule seems silly when that's the cost of ~10 stoplights and there are like 33 million businesses in the US. But it also seems ridiculous to skip since four people doing nothing but having a discussion about a new rule for 30 minutes across a good portion of those businesses is easily $100mil w/o them even having to lift a pinky besides.

Wait, a stoplight costs $10 million?

I had in mind a project in my area a few years back where redoing a four way major intersection was quoted like that, not actually one literal stoplight just purchased and delivered.

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

#542

Post by Glyptodon » Thu, Jul 10, 2025, 4:27 AM UTC

0xTJ wrote: post #457

cortesoft wrote: post #441

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wait, a stoplight costs $10 million?

No they don't. I'm not sure where they got that number from, but it's either wrong or being misrepresented (costs of entire infrastructure project confused with cost of lights). $10M is off by 1-3 orders of magnitude, depending on if you're counting installation of just one signal or a complete intersection. It's conceivable for the installation of traffic lights in a remote place to be an expensive project if there'…

I was thinking of a project that redid a four way intersection.

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

#543

Post by slg » Thu, Jul 10, 2025, 4:45 AM UTC

jMyles wrote: post #532

slg wrote: post #423

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>$100 million or more rule seems silly when that's the cost of ~10 stoplights and there are like 33 million businesses in the US. A minute of internet research suggests that specific $100m figure is from a 45-year-old law[1]. I don't know why every government law and regulation that references specific monetary values like this aren't pegged to inflation. That equivalent value today is almost $400m. EDIT: Actually th…

> I don't know why every government law and regulation that references specific monetary values like this aren't pegged to inflation. It's an utter mess. This job falls primarily to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, who compiles the basket of goods that make up the Consumer Price Index - but this doesn't include food or fuel, for example. The Bureau of Economic Analysis also maintains several indices which are used as…

I don't understand the point in raising these specific practical objections like my simple comment was intended to be the text of the legislation. There are all sorts of ways these issues can be addressed like pegging it to a specific index of inflation and have it run on a long delay to allow full transparency and predictability.

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

#544

Post by [deleted] » Thu, Jul 10, 2025, 4:48 AM UTC

cogman10 wrote: post #283

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.

Yeah, I take a dim view of the courts in general these days. However, this looks black and white. The FTC was trying to rush in the change before Trump took office and that backfired on them. Now, the rule is good. There is no reason why the current FTC shouldn't implement it. It literally harms nobody except for businesses addicted to dark patterns.

[deleted]

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

#545

Post by smarnach » Thu, Jul 10, 2025, 5:46 AM UTC

t-writescode wrote: post #459

mindwork wrote: post #386

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

The standard "Accept Cookies" banner is, give or take, malicious compliance to the EU's cookie laws. For actually required things, it doesn't *need* to be a banner. Companies tend to use a standardized, third-party-powered "follow the EU law" tool that they get the ugly cookie banner. And even that banner's malicious compliance is under attack now because it takes too many steps to opt out. For things like sign-in, y…

Not even that. There's no rule in the GDPR to disclose the use of cookies. The regulation doesn't actually mention cookies at all, except maybe in an example. Instead, any data collection that's obviously required to do what the user requests (including session and shopping cart cookies) doesn't require any explicit consent. Only additional data collection, whether performed by cookies or any other means, requires consent.

That's why there are websites without cookie banners, like GitHub. It's not even hard to do that; it's just that most companies don't bother, because they know the EU will be blamed anyway.

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

#546

Post by tsimionescu » Thu, Jul 10, 2025, 7:10 AM UTC

caesil wrote: post #318

John23832 wrote: post #236

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.

I find it quite absurd to suggest that a ruling that forces corporations to simplify their business practices would cost $100 million to implement. I would be willing to bet the companies would significantly reduce their spending by following these rules, not increase them. But it's not in any way surprising that they'd find a judge who buys their massively overinflated estimates over the FTC's calculations.

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

#547

Post by chrisandchris » Thu, Jul 10, 2025, 7:35 AM UTC

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.

For example, in Switzerland you cannot cancel your landline or mobile phone subscription (at the two largest providers) without calling or chatting to customer support. They excluded "cancellation by mail/e-mail" explicitly in their terms of use.

I recently tried to cancel my landline and first they told me I could only cancel within 1 to 3 months up to the expiration, not earlier (which is clearly against any existing law).

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

#548

Post by quitit » Thu, Jul 10, 2025, 9:00 AM UTC

cyral wrote: post #238

quitit wrote: post #215

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is one of the reasons why providers -hate- IAP subscriptions, even if the profit share was 0%, they'd still not be happy because with IAP it's just one click to cancel. It's not even a practice limited to "shady" companies, the New York Times would let you sign up online, but only cancel via a convoluted phone call with one of their subscription retainment reps. These days you're better off obtaining a credit ca…

Well, the "one click" cancel is hidden deep in the settings app - and when customers contact us asking to cancel, they don't like to hear that we cannot cancel or refund them from our end. (Apple doesn't even provide a way to look up the customer. Most people don't understand that Apple is actually managing the entire billing process)

>Well, the "one click" cancel is hidden deep in the settings app"

no it's not, it's not even close to being deep or hidden.

It's 2 taps inside the settings app, or a single tap when searched from the system wide search bar.

>Most people don't understand that Apple is actually managing the entire billing process

Apple marks transactions as "apple.com/bill" which provides a straightforward way to view charges or request a refund.

Here's a list of things that require more taps than accessing Subscriptions:

1. Changing the wallpaper.

2. Making a phone call.

3. Collecting apps into a folder.

4. Setting an alarm.

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

#549

Post by immibis » Thu, Jul 10, 2025, 9:31 AM UTC

bluGill wrote: post #233

fireflash38 wrote: post #179

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The "other side" here is the political group that is consistently anti-regulation, anti-consumer, anti-government.

The "other side" does not consider themselves anti-consumer. You disagree with them on what anti-consumer means, but they have their own reasons to consider their position pro-consumer and you are doing debate a disservice by ignoring that. They do consider themselves anti-regulation and anti-government in general, but they are not (mostly) anarchists, they do agree with some regulation and government, they just want…

Do they actually consider themselves pro-consumer, do they lie and say that, or do they keep quiet about it and let you assume that?

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

#550

Post by disgruntledphd2 » Thu, Jul 10, 2025, 10:22 AM UTC

Tainnor wrote: post #364

pjmlp wrote: 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.

It's definitely better in Europe, but certain courts and DPAs (especially the Irish one) are unfortunately known to be incredibly business friendly.

> DPAs (especially the Irish one) are unfortunately known to be incredibly business friendly

Can you give me some examples of this please?

I think that the core problem for the Irish DPA is that they are woefully under-resourced, and they're up against the biggest companies in the world. Now, one could argue that this is the fault of the government/people and I'd agree with you, but that's a harder thing to change (Ireland was basically the only country that didn't throw their government out post the massive Covid/Ukraine inflation spike).