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

niemanlab.org

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

#561

Post by rootusrootus »

aeternum wrote: post #546
eckesicle wrote: post #502

Meanwhile in Scandinavia: You are legally entitled to unsubscribe from any contract in any way that is most comfortable to you. [0] For example, you can: * send them a letter * send them an email * call them and tell anyone who picks up the phone * write it on a napkin and hand it to an employee All are equally legit and legally binding. Companies obviously do not want to deal with the manual overhead, so services ty…

This seems really annoying. You can unsubscribe to most things in writing as well in the US. The issue is that it takes only a misclick to subscribe, whereas writing and mailing a letter or getting a napkin and travelling to the company's HQ takes considerably more effort (few companies have humans answer the phone). Seems that Scandinavia needs to change their laws if the goal is to make it easy for the consumer.

> This seems really annoying.

The most annoying part is that in any thread like this the top comment invariably ends up being some smug observation that is clearly better than the US.

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

#562

Post by artursapek »

TedDoesntTalk wrote: post #341
aristophenes wrote: post #316

I had to cancel my gym membership because I was moving, and it required me to send a physical letter. I did this, but found out later that somehow I owed like 2 dollars, so they didn’t count my cancellation request because my account wasn’t up to date (should be illegal). They continued to bill me the entire membership fee, but my credit card had changed, so they sent my account to a collections agency. Right when I…

This behavior is everywhere in the gym industry. It is so bad that the last time I joined a gym, I paid for a year up front with a physical check. I told them i don’t have credit or debit cards (lie) and can only pay by check. At the end of the year, I walked away and never got any letters about paying a renewal or anything.

Crypto would be good for this use case :)

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

#563

Post by b3morales »

dspillett wrote: post #372
mrfusion wrote: post #300

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sounds super dangerous though.

The red light is some distance ahead, not right in front of the speed detector so that you have to immediately hammer down the break pedal and be rear-ended by the vehicle behind. Of course some will still get as close to the light as they can and hammer the breaks last moment, but they'll do that at other lights too, and other unsafe things, so the danger is not caused by the light in that instance.

Is it a normal light at an intersection, or an extra one somewhere in the middle of a block? It's not hard for me to imagine people scoffing at the mid-block light and deciding to run through it.

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

#564

Post by marginalia_nu »

eckesicle wrote: post #502

Meanwhile in Scandinavia: You are legally entitled to unsubscribe from any contract in any way that is most comfortable to you. [0] For example, you can: * send them a letter * send them an email * call them and tell anyone who picks up the phone * write it on a napkin and hand it to an employee All are equally legit and legally binding. Companies obviously do not want to deal with the manual overhead, so services ty…

I tried to delete my Spotify account (in Sweden). Not just cancel, but delete because they inexplicably put my profile on the Internet in full display and I was not even a little bit okay with that.

I think 7 different "yes I'm really sure, yes despite the sad violin music and yes despite the images of sad puppies", a support ticket, several emails going back and forth confirming I'm really sure, and then a few more forms assuring I'm absolutely sure I want to do this.

I don't... know what they think they are accomplishing with this obstacle course. If anything this nonsense makes me want to remove the account even more. If it was just a button I might have come back later, but they can rest assured they will never see me again after that nonsense.

If that means listening to gramophones for the rest of my life, so be it.

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

#566

Post by elwell »

ferdowsi wrote: post #560
elwell wrote: post #549

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How does this law translate to decentralized contracts/subscriptions? It may not be possible to support these analog mediums on an Ethereum smart contract for example.

Seems like smart contracts aren't so smart if they don't support easy cancelation mechanisms.

Our future digital overlords might choose to integrate humans into the hivemind to support these analog cancellation requests, but gas costs would certainly spike.

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

#567

Post by BizarroLand »

mindslight wrote: post #468
user3939382 wrote: post #328

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You don't piss off gov't regulators Yep. If you deal with them you learn quickly that all that “splitting hairs” stuff you see in Hollywood dramas buys you nothing. For a lot of administrative compliance, with the state or Feds, they are judge jury and executioner and the rules are what they say they are. Unless you have a lot of money and influence don’t play games with them.

You're certainly right for personal advice, but does the New York Times not have a lot of money? They've certainly got the influence bit covered. Once you can buy enough of your own bureaucrats to tie up their bureaucrats, regulators' power isn't so clear.

More powerful than that though is that you don't want the regulators to have to do any work. Once they have work to do they are insanely efficient, at least when it involves punishing the person who made them do work.

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

#568

Post by MAGZine »

strenholme wrote: post #344

Since I live in California, which has a “click to subscribe means you must have click to cancel” regulation, this isn’t an issue for me. After the New York Times published their inaccurate hit piece attacking Scott Alexander and Slate Star Codex/Astral Codex Ten, I was able to cancel online just clicking my way through. I now subscribe to The Wall Street Journal, which looks to be the most neutral newspaper right now…

Canceling aside, I don't think the WSJ is particularly neutral, but perhaps it does appeal to your sensibilities (note, however, those are not the same).

I find WSJ to take particularly corporatist/capitialist views on things. Which is fine for things business, I suppose, but I've read many articles from WSJ that are basically "hey government sucks, am i rite?" which is not neutral.

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

#569

Post by chrsig »

rootusrootus wrote: post #561
aeternum wrote: post #546

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This seems really annoying. You can unsubscribe to most things in writing as well in the US. The issue is that it takes only a misclick to subscribe, whereas writing and mailing a letter or getting a napkin and travelling to the company's HQ takes considerably more effort (few companies have humans answer the phone). Seems that Scandinavia needs to change their laws if the goal is to make it easy for the consumer.

> This seems really annoying. The most annoying part is that in any thread like this the top comment invariably ends up being some smug observation that is clearly better than the US.

The solution to this is to help the US rise to the occasion, not complain about it on the internet.

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

#570

Post by nobodyandproud »

You ever tried canceling Amazon Prime?

Amazon words the cancellation prompt in a way that it SEEMS like you’re out the $139.00 when it renewed.

And injects many options to keep you, while you think you’re canceling.

But no, it’s prorated (because it’d be illegal otherwise) and it’s all the way at the bottom many pages down.

There are many, many dark patterns

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