Is NYC the first just because every city in California does it by state rules? I'm confused.
New York City to ban deceptive subscription practices
161–170 of 363 posts
Re: New York City to ban deceptive subscription practices
#162Is this something that cities can really enforce? Like I get that NYC is a bit of an exception but let's say a 5 person town in Wyoming decides that they want to make this practice illegal and they all vote to do so. It's not clear to me that would mean anything at all.
[deleted]
Re: New York City to ban deceptive subscription practices
#163Earlier quoted context omitted.
From TFA: > Rule from Mamdani administration ... targets ‘junk fees’ > The city is also targeting so-called “junk fees” that raise the final price of everything from apartments to sporting events, with a proposed rule that requires sellers to “advertise the total price for any good or service, including all mandatory additional charges and fees, up front”, according to a release shared with the Guardian.
The latest one for me is renting a new apartment, getting told it cost $XXXX a month, then being told I'm required to have $XXXXXX amount of renter's insurance at $XXX a month and oh, by the way, click here to use ours.
The insurance requirement isn’t uncommon where I am (California). Though I would avoid whatever plan they are pushing. I got mine through my existing insurance provider and it worked out to ~$15 per month IIRC.
Re: New York City to ban deceptive subscription practices
#164These rules are great but “landmark” seems like puffery, as California has had such rules for quite a while. Ironically that has meant it’s hard to unsubscribe from the New York Times except in California.
The NYC propaganda is strong right now with Mamdani.
California still S-tier for protecting its land and people.
Re: New York City to ban deceptive subscription practices
#165Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yea, it's basically restaurant owners trying to get their customers involved in their political whining. Notice how you never see things like "Business License Fee" or "Restaurant Electricity Bill Surcharge" listed out as separate line items on customers' bills. Those are things restaurant owners have to pay, too, so why don't they get their own charges to customers? Why does only "Living Wage" get a line item on the…
> Electricity Bill Surcharge "Fuel surcharge" on flights. Which should be illegal: the cost of hedging fuel cost risk should be included in any ticket price. A friend said that Uber was charging a fuel surcharge here in New Zealand, but that it wasn't passed on to the driver (who pays for the fuel). If true I would find that interesting.
> A friend said that Uber was charging a fuel surcharge here in New Zealand, but that it wasn't passed on to the driver
I did a bit of a dive on this and I think it’s not correct. I have a low threshold for hating them, after the reports of how females staffers were treated a few years back, but this new thing seems to be untrue.
https://www.stuff.co.nz/business/128042303/uber-introduces-f...
Re: New York City to ban deceptive subscription practices
#166Is this something that cities can really enforce? Like I get that NYC is a bit of an exception but let's say a 5 person town in Wyoming decides that they want to make this practice illegal and they all vote to do so. It's not clear to me that would mean anything at all.
NYC has ~2% of the US population, and it’s a relatively wealthy slice compared to the mean. NYC has roughly 13x as many people as the entire state of Wyoming. I could see a company writing off Wyoming entirely (not likely, but possible) but not NYC. States like CA, FL, NY, and TX can pass state laws that create defacto national regulations through sheer size, but smaller than that and you’ll have trouble.
Sure but say some company based in Lousiana has a website that violates NYC law.
What exactly will NYC do about it? Is there some mechanism to for them to block the website inside of NYC? The company would presumably have no property they could seize or employees they could imprison.
If it were a state passing the law then they could sue for enforcement in federal court but I don't think a city could?
Re: New York City to ban deceptive subscription practices
#167This is what legitimate government looks like. Leaders actually advocating for the people who are being deceived by those in power instead of helping those in power. While this may be a trivial issue, being able to cancel a gym or newspaper subscription, it sends a signal. Companies need to view customers as partners in a business transaction and not objects to be exploited.
I have similar feelings. I am sympathetic to a perspective that says this is not the responsibility of a mayor of a single city... But also; who else is going to do it? Normal people have very little say over the politicians that govern them in larger electoral regions like states or provinces, and maybe this can signal to other levels of government that they should implement similar rules... If it works.
Mamdani has been doing great in NYC so far. The hope is that he will inspire similar behavior in others. And drive similar approaches to politics in other constituencies.
Re: New York City to ban deceptive subscription practices
#168The irony with all this, is if a company makes it difficult to cancel their subscription, it's probably not a good product. Antidotically, I've found that making it easy for users to not only cancel, but refund, has given me eye opening things to fix in some products that made it so less people cancelled or refunded. So I try to always err on best user experience.
NYT made it difficult, and they are a pretty good product. If you didn't live in california and wanted to cancel your subscription, you were required to talk to a service rep who would try to get you stay by giving you some free period before normal subscription billing resumed
I know of 4 NYT subscriptions that have not been made due to the difficulty in cancelling.
I’m sure they know the exact stats, and are getting more cash as a result of their BS.
Good site, trash business practices.
Re: New York City to ban deceptive subscription practices
#169The irony with all this, is if a company makes it difficult to cancel their subscription, it's probably not a good product. Antidotically, I've found that making it easy for users to not only cancel, but refund, has given me eye opening things to fix in some products that made it so less people cancelled or refunded. So I try to always err on best user experience.
> Antidotically, Anecdotally
The practice being discussed is poison, so it sort of works.
Re: New York City to ban deceptive subscription practices
#170Earlier quoted context omitted.
Generally when a seller in state X in the US sells to a buyer in a different state Y the consumer protection laws of state Y apply. Even if the seller in X does not have a presence in Y, and so you might think Y has no jurisdiction, purposefully conducting business within a state is sufficient to allow Y to assert jurisdiction in regards to that business.
> Generally when a seller in state X in the US sells to a buyer in a different state Y the consumer protection laws of state Y apply. I've found the person who lives in California lol, no it does not work that way.
No, you've found the person who (1) remembers Civil Procedure from the first year of law school [0], particularly the case of International Shoe Co. v. Washington, 326 U.S. 310 (1945) [1], (2) did some checking to make sure that between then and now nothing significant has changed (it hasn't--International Shoe is still the foundational case in this area), (3) remembers several large non-California companies California has successfully enforced its consumer protection and privacy laws against and several non-Illinois companies Illinois has enforced its similar laws against.
"Minimum contacts" is a good term to include in searches if you want to learn more on this.
[0] Note: I am not a lawyer. Near the end of law school I decided I'd rather be a programmer with a decent knowledge of law than a lawyer with a decent knowledge of programming.