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New York City to ban deceptive subscription practices

theguardian.com

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Re: New York City to ban deceptive subscription practices

#221

Post by acdha »

dml2135 wrote: post #175
acdha wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don’t like it either but blame goes to the top of the org chart. That’s not illegal or, by the standards of the field, flagrantly unethical so it’s a bit extreme to expect someone to resign over.

I don’t know what standards you are referring to, but yea I would call it flagrantly unethical for sure.

Is not showing a cancel button quickly better or worse than treating accessibility as a checkbox and producing things which many people struggle to use despite laws requiring you to support them? Shoving unwanted features into a bundle? Encouraging people to use Chrome by introducing dependencies on proprietary features or not testing other browsers? Designing apps with bloated JavaScript frameworks which are borderline unusable on non-flagship phones? Using ad networks which skimp on malware prevention or resell user activity data? Requiring lots of PII and storing it haphazardly? Designing products which depend on servers which are shutoff over the wishes of customers? Working for a company whose products support wars or mass surveillance?

I’m not saying it’s great but … the tech industry has a lot of problems and I can sympathize with someone who isn’t quick to resign when most of the alternatives aren’t clearly better. It’s a lot easier to say someone else should take a moral stance when you personally won’t have to pay their bills.

Re: New York City to ban deceptive subscription practices

#222

Post by pibaker »

walt_grata wrote: post #156
acdha wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don’t like it either but blame goes to the top of the org chart. That’s not illegal or, by the standards of the field, flagrantly unethical so it’s a bit extreme to expect someone to resign over.

Blame goes to everyone involved. From the decision makers to the implementors

Are you willing to show us your work history and let hackers news judge every single feature you have implemented in your career in exchange for money?

Re: New York City to ban deceptive subscription practices

#223

Post by tayo42 »

Rebelgecko wrote: post #68
aczerepinski wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I once wrote code that checks location before hiding/showing the cancel button. It’s really absurd that the nice experience exists on all subscription sites by now but you only get to see it if your state demands it.

Same with websites like Airbnb. Last I checked, their search results only showed the 'real' prices (eg including fees) for certain states and countries. In some states you have to click into the listing before learning that there's an extra $500 cleaning fee on top of the nightly rate :)

Airbnb is so confusing for me because of this. I find the per night price easier to think about.

Re: New York City to ban deceptive subscription practices

#225

Post by XorNot »

saghm wrote: post #206
nemomarx wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mean culturally we're used to it, but it seems really easy to test for and therefore fine businesses doing it in NYC? Just go ring up some purchase and see if they add a tax onto the listed price, and if they do report it.

Agreed, this is totally solvable. You could even set up an email address for people to send pictures of their receipts to so they know who to investigate. Imagine if you could just screenshot a bill and send it to "junkfees@nyc.gov" and then they'd assign someone to look into it!

Also pre-emptively accepting defeat is by definition self-defeating.

You don't know it won't work if it's not actually tried and as noted there's no particular reason to think it can't work.

Re: New York City to ban deceptive subscription practices

#226

Post by dnautics »

sxp wrote: post #22
dghlsakjg wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fees on one time services are not what this is targeting. This legislation is not meant to address that, and wouldn't apply to that. They are going after recurring billing (that's what the headline means by "subscription"). It mentions things like gyms, online subscriptions etc. It would be pretty wild if they had managed to get service fees at restaurants when they were not at all targeting service fees, restaurants…

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.

i think drip pricing was already cracked down on by the FTC as of 2025

Re: New York City to ban deceptive subscription practices

#227

Post by robocat »

lostlogin wrote: post #165
robocat wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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...

Great link. Sounded suss to me. Could easily have been a bullshit taxi driver, or a social outrage story. I should have tried to validate before repeating, sorry.

Re: New York City to ban deceptive subscription practices

#228

Post by cogman10 »

CSMastermind wrote: post #67

Is 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.

It ultimately depends on if there is overriding state or federal law. But yeah, it's something a city can enforce.

A small town in Wyoming could do the same and could sue (and probably win) against businesses that do business in that small town and break the law. What most likely happens in that case is that small Wyoming town ends up blacklisted by that business.

Re: New York City to ban deceptive subscription practices

#229

Post by cogman10 »

CSMastermind wrote: post #166
quickthrowman wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

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