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“Click to subscribe, call to cancel” is illegal, FTC says

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Re: “Click to subscribe, call to cancel” is illegal, FTC says

#161

Post by xg15 »

> Publishers tend to think of this as “retention.”

My understanding was that "retention" used to be simply a measure of how many unique users/customers kept using your product. With some implicit (maybe too optimistic) understanding that they stayed because they wanted to.

In classic "if your measure becomes a target, it ceases to be a measure" tradition, "retention" today seems to be about keeping as many recurring visitors as possible, no matter how and no matter the reason why they are staying.

Re: “Click to subscribe, call to cancel” is illegal, FTC says

#162

Post by cto_of_antifa »

jgb1984 wrote: post #140
neya wrote: post #59

Fuck New York Times, I had to go through this chaos once and promised to never ever use any of their services ever again. I even went to the pain of making sure all my ad blockers were in full force when visiting the NYT. I developed a strong sense of hatred after realize what kind of slimy tactics they used to stop you from cancelling a subscription. One day, I found a loophole. I would email them requesting a cance…

Why would I want to read their woke hysteria anyway...

Because it's some of the most accurate and highly detailed journalism in the world.

Re: “Click to subscribe, call to cancel” is illegal, FTC says

#163

Post by pantulis »

littlecranky67 wrote: post #108
sorokod wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Was cancelling my cell provider and was required to send a fax - hello Vodafone.de

Cancellation by mail is always fine, no company can opt out of it in a legal way. You don't even need to get the address right, you can mail it to any subsidiary of the company - it is the companys responsibility to correctly route it internally. You can even directly address it to the CEO and at "persönlich" to it. My favorite.

You would need proof of receipt and proof of content in case contract termination does not happen, though.

Re: “Click to subscribe, call to cancel” is illegal, FTC says

#164

Post by op00to »

jgb1984 wrote: post #140
neya wrote: post #59

Fuck New York Times, I had to go through this chaos once and promised to never ever use any of their services ever again. I even went to the pain of making sure all my ad blockers were in full force when visiting the NYT. I developed a strong sense of hatred after realize what kind of slimy tactics they used to stop you from cancelling a subscription. One day, I found a loophole. I would email them requesting a cance…

Why would I want to read their woke hysteria anyway...

Reading about opposing viewpoints broaden your horizons, and surrounding yourself with media that reinforces your own world view does nothing to make your life better.

Re: “Click to subscribe, call to cancel” is illegal, FTC says

#165

Post by DyslexicAtheist »

mdp2021 wrote: post #55
lagadu wrote: post #29

In Portugal the law makes it so you can cancel any service using the same means that you used to subscribe it, so if they support subscribing online, unsubscribing also has to be doable the same way; same goes for via phone, personal or whatnot. It makes sense, prevents service providers from making it too difficult to terminate a contract.

This is extremely reasonable and civilized. Would you say that the rest of the legislation in Portugal is consistent, and the direction of the Country is towards good sense and reliability? I have noticed of other EU countries that a response against abuse may exist, but severely delayed and only partial (e.g. about sale of misrepresented services and other contractual scams, especially when carried out over the phon…

> Would you say that the rest of the legislation in Portugal is consistent, and the direction of the Country is towards good sense and reliability?

not GP, ... it is a role-model when it comes to the points listed above. I think it's hard to answer your question because how would one define "good sense and reliability". At the risk of being called out for whataboutism, here is something that would be sobering for most people (like myself) applauding the current "good parts":

https://www.biometricupdate.com/202111/portuguese-lawmakers-...

Re: “Click to subscribe, call to cancel” is illegal, FTC says

#167

Post by xg15 »

> including an option that’s “at least as easy” as the one to subscribe

Weirdly enough this sounds like a loophole.

I can already see some companies trying to bullshit their way through an investigation: "Oh sure, we don't provide online cancellation, because our way to cancel is even easier than online:" *presents a way to cancel that is in practice more difficult than online*.

I think either mandating that cancelling must be possible using the same workflow as subscription or more clearly defining what "easy" means would be important.

Re: “Click to subscribe, call to cancel” is illegal, FTC says

#168

Post by thedougd »

Puts wrote: post #154
neya wrote: post #59

Fuck New York Times, I had to go through this chaos once and promised to never ever use any of their services ever again. I even went to the pain of making sure all my ad blockers were in full force when visiting the NYT. I developed a strong sense of hatred after realize what kind of slimy tactics they used to stop you from cancelling a subscription. One day, I found a loophole. I would email them requesting a cance…

There's been a lot of talk about how newspapers are dying because nobody wants to pay for digital subscriptions. I think this industry seriously gets to blame themselves for this. I've tried subscribing to a couple of magazines back in the days and with every one of them it was a living nightmare to get out of the subscriptions. Once ending the subscription one even started sending what looked like regular invoices w…

Subscribing through something like Amazon also makes it easy to cancel.

Re: “Click to subscribe, call to cancel” is illegal, FTC says

#169

Post by microtonal »

t0mas88 wrote: post #81
grenoire wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

T-Mobile Thuis literally delayed the end of my subscription by two months, and only cancelled it when I called back. There wasn't ever a way to cancel online. In practice they've really been truly garbage, lawful or not.

Ziggo is similar, very shitty customer service, and you have to talk to an aggressive sales person to be allowed to cancel. The moment fiber was delivered to my area I cancelled them and just hung up on the sales guy lying to me about how their speed was higher (it definitely isn't) than fiber.

Ziggo is terrible. I recently overheard one of their salespersons (at MediaMarkt) claiming that Ziggo is also fiber internet (it's cable). Only when the customer pushed him, he admitted that it is not really fiber, but then argued that it doesn't really matter, because 90whatever percent of the route from the data center to home is fiber.

Re: “Click to subscribe, call to cancel” is illegal, FTC says

#170

Post by cheggisguilty »

Chegg Study for university students does not link to a cancel subscription on their website, you have to search google "how to remove sub from chegg" and then you can find a "Cancel Sub" help article on the Chegg website. You can not get directly to the cancel article from their base website. They should be fined for the dark pattern.
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