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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

#591

Post by derbOac »

nobody9999 wrote: post #481

Dark patterns aren't just for cancellations. A couple years back, a friend bought me a one year gift subscription for Britbox[0]. When I tried to activate the gift subscription, the site refused to allow me to do so unless I provided them with a credit card number. Which, from a practical standpoint, makes no sense as it was a gift . I wasn't going to provide these wankers with my credit card number[0], so I then had…

This is one reason I miss one-time credit card numbers. My main credit card used to allow you to generate one-time numbers. You could control the limit on the numbers, how long they would last, you could edit this, and so forth and so on. I loved it because you could give a different unique card number to each site, that would self-destruct after a specified amount of time.

It was great for stuff like this because if they pulled this kind of nonsense, you could just walk away and they were left with a unique card number that didn't matter worth anything. Most of the time, you might only have the number active for a few weeks, so if they tried to charge that number say, a year later, it was obvious they were trying to use a number you had intentionally made limited in time.

This service was discontinued and I really miss it a lot.

I still don't know that I'd go into a contract with any company that behaves this way (newspapers included) but it provided a layer of insurance in case you missed something.

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

#593

Post by dehrmann »

marginalia_nu wrote: post #564
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…

> they inexplicably put my profile on the Internet in full display

Do you mean this page?

https://open.spotify.com/user/daniel

That data is also visible to anyone in the app, and you can mark playlists as private.

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

#594

Post by elwell »

neltnerb wrote: post #582
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.

Why? Can't a company make it so that there's a "cancel contract" method? I am not an Ethereum expert, I just don't understand, to be clear. I'm sure this is far more basic than what you know how to do, but this seems pretty simple to add a "cancel contract" method that seems like it'd meet the requirement to be as easy to cancel as it was to set up. The account status seems like they can at any time just read it off…

I was more so referring to having to support the handing of a napkin to an employee.

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

#595

Post by d0gsg0w00f »

barbazoo wrote: post #580
kieloo wrote: post #18

Same thing with The Guardian. Subscribed online and was then told I can’t cancel via email and have to endure a pushy sales call if I want to cancel. Similar experience with The Economist except it was via live chat instead. These experiences honestly make me want to never subscribe to a newspaper again.

The difficulty cancelling Economist one time put me off from subscribing to a paper ever since. I don't get it, their content is good, let me cancel easily and I'll come back easily. How desperate are those services that they implement measures like that, counting on people to not follow through the cancellation process, forgetting to cancel altogether, etc. And then doing the absolute minimum necessary, e.g. offerin…

As a WSJ subscriber I'm so used to their blunt "to the point" editorial style that I find Economist articles too long winded and short-storyish. I always get 5 paragraphs in and still can't figure out what the article is getting at. Ain't nobody got time for that.

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

#596

Post by vaidhy »

Great job FTC/Lima. We need it and you delivered.

On a separate note. Why is it really hard for HN community to make a compliment? Yes, some companies will try to skirt around. But most of us seem to agree this is a step in the right direction and being hopeful is nice.

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

#597

Post by marginalia_nu »

dehrmann wrote: post #593
marginalia_nu wrote: post #564

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> they inexplicably put my profile on the Internet in full display Do you mean this page? https://open.spotify.com/user/daniel That data is also visible to anyone in the app, and you can mark playlists as private.

See, if they hadn't had such an annoying deletion process, I might have come back after learning that. But I won't. I will never.

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

#598

Post by WarOnPrivacy »

derbOac wrote: post #591
nobody9999 wrote: post #481

Dark patterns aren't just for cancellations. A couple years back, a friend bought me a one year gift subscription for Britbox[0]. When I tried to activate the gift subscription, the site refused to allow me to do so unless I provided them with a credit card number. Which, from a practical standpoint, makes no sense as it was a gift . I wasn't going to provide these wankers with my credit card number[0], so I then had…

This is one reason I miss one-time credit card numbers. My main credit card used to allow you to generate one-time numbers. You could control the limit on the numbers, how long they would last, you could edit this, and so forth and so on. I loved it because you could give a different unique card number to each site, that would self-destruct after a specified amount of time. It was great for stuff like this because if…

> This is one reason I miss one-time credit card numbers.

I don't remember those. It sounds awesome.

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

#599

Post by blacksmith_tb »

derbOac wrote: post #591
nobody9999 wrote: post #481

Dark patterns aren't just for cancellations. A couple years back, a friend bought me a one year gift subscription for Britbox[0]. When I tried to activate the gift subscription, the site refused to allow me to do so unless I provided them with a credit card number. Which, from a practical standpoint, makes no sense as it was a gift . I wasn't going to provide these wankers with my credit card number[0], so I then had…

This is one reason I miss one-time credit card numbers. My main credit card used to allow you to generate one-time numbers. You could control the limit on the numbers, how long they would last, you could edit this, and so forth and so on. I loved it because you could give a different unique card number to each site, that would self-destruct after a specified amount of time. It was great for stuff like this because if…

My bank also had (and then killed off) this feature, which I used a lot for exactly the same reason (or ordering stuff from Aliexpress etc.) I have been looking at privacy.com which seems like it may be an acceptable replacement, though it has some strange sign-up hoops of its own.

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

#600

Post by antasvara »

marginalia_nu wrote: post #564
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…

I think the general idea is that if they make it difficult enough, some people might just decide that it's not worth canceling. I'm sure there's some metric that says most people canceling a subscription are unlikely to resubscribe, so making it difficult to do so probably increases the likelihood of keeping you by some small percentage, offsetting your likelihood of coming back.

The NY Times is a great and slimy example of this. Canceling the subscription requires a phone call or online chatbot, which make a people less likely to cancel. When you do try to cancel, they offer you a deal to stay. You have to reject that deal to finally cancel your subscription. While this is clearly a bad customer experience, I can almost guarantee that it increases their retention rates.

Ultimately, a business is hurt a lot less by giving a poor experience to someone already canceling their subscription.

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