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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

#131

Post by Dylan16807 »

firesteelrain wrote: post #113
sameermanek wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Devil is in the details, they said each company would have to pay for less than 23 hrs to a low level engineer to avoid the $100 mil impact. How much time do you think an intern would need to render a button on screen that says "cancel" in red mapped to an already implemented function in the code base. Especially with trillions poured into the AI? This is non sense and horse shit, and these bench full of idiots know…

These “bench full of idiots” are not blind to the fact that there are deceptive practices regarding subscriptions. FTC didn’t do their job right unfortunately and here we are. Now, new administration and it’s doubtful this will get picked up again barring any law passed by Congress.

It sounds like they did their job fine. 23 hours on average is plenty. Most companies can do this in 2 hours, and a few of them can spend a lot longer.

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

#132

Post by rlpb »

postalrat wrote: post #47

I should be able to go into my bank or card service online. View a list of all my subscriptions. Click on a subscription (or select all). And cancel. If there is a card that offers this let me know because I'll be switching immediately.

Legally, this isn't sufficient. Your subscription contract is independent of your payment method. If you don't pay, that doesn't necessarily mean that your subscription is cancelled, and you could end up in court and lose.

What is necessary is regulatory (or statutory) enforcement of easy, online notice of cancellation, without a company able to frustrate you giving them (and them recording and acknowledging) that notice.

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

#133

Post by immibis »

postalrat wrote: post #47

I should be able to go into my bank or card service online. View a list of all my subscriptions. Click on a subscription (or select all). And cancel. If there is a card that offers this let me know because I'll be switching immediately.

This would be illegal in western countries.

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

#134

Post by guelo »

Of course it's going to cost more than $100 million if they have stop stealing from us.

Corporate Republicans hate red tape and regulation for business but love it for starngling government and the poor (they just added huge onoreous red tape to medicaid and food stamp recipients because they absolutely hate their fellow americans).

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

#135

Post by immibis »

avhception wrote: post #114
skort wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's interesting that businesses can build an obviously toxic subscription model that robs consumers of both money and time, but when asked to change it now we have to consider their costs. I understand the idea behind the threshold for changing rules but this still feels very broken. There is a constant struggle of having to do everything perfectly to make any positive progress, but bad actors can operate however th…

While I share your frustration, I don't think we should lower the bar for positive progress. Because that's how one becomes a bad actor themselves.

When bad actors have a low bar but good actors have a high bar, the country is bound to collapse. Look at how many rules the current regime is flouting. But the other side has to dot every i for some reason.

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

#136

Post by jagged-chisel »

sameermanek wrote: post #101
bpodgursky wrote: post #15

From a different article [1]: > But the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit said the FTC erred in its rulemaking process by failing to produce a preliminary regulatory analysis, a statutory requirement for rules whose annual effect on the national economy would exceed $100 million. > The FTC had argued that it was not required to prepare the preliminary analysis because its initial estimate of the rule’s imp…

Devil is in the details, they said each company would have to pay for less than 23 hrs to a low level engineer to avoid the $100 mil impact. How much time do you think an intern would need to render a button on screen that says "cancel" in red mapped to an already implemented function in the code base. Especially with trillions poured into the AI? This is non sense and horse shit, and these bench full of idiots know…

Your argument presumes that “cost” is “money spent to implement,” when in reality any reduction in predicted revenue is also a “cost.”

The cost of allowing people to cancel subscriptions is more than the cost to implement a button.

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

#137

Post by sensanaty »

silisili wrote: post #44
dalemhurley wrote: post #30

Here is an idea, make your service value for money and people will not want to cancel. If your product is so poor that the only way you can retain customers is to make it too hard for them to cancel then your product needs to be improved.

You just offended siriusxm, every newspaper, and every gym in the country.

Man what the fuck is it with gyms? I'm not even in the US, but even in the Netherlands where these kind of things are generally super simple and hassle-free (by law) I've had some nightmarish, headache inducing situations with gyms. I've literally never encountered anything else, ever, nearly as bad as dealing with gyms and their contracts in my entire life. It was a million times easier closing brokerage accounts with decent chunks of money in them than it was to cancel a gym membership I once had.

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

#138

Post by globalnode »

xedrac wrote: post #12

I always felt like those click to unsubscribe links were nothing more than a "please prove to us with certainty that this is an actively used account so we can set a sticky bit on it and sell that info for $$$"

just mark them as spam, hurts them more and doesnt notify them of anything.

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

#139

Post by wqaatwt »

jibe wrote: post #31
dboreham wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because systematic corruption presumably?

If you are sniffing out corruption, aren’t the ones flouting required procedures likely the corrupt ones?

What if the “required procedures” are held in place by corruption?

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

#140

Post by pjmlp »

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.

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