The Federal Trade Commission has delayed the start of a rule that aims to make the process of canceling subscriptions less of a nightmare. Last year, the FTC voted to ratify amendments to a regulation known as the Negative Option Rule, adding a new “click-to-cancel” rule that requires companies to be upfront about the terms of subscription signups and prohibits them “from making it any more difficult for consumers to cancel than it was to sign up.” Surprising no one, telecom companies were not happy, and sued the FTC. While the rule was nevertheless set to be implemented on May 14, the FTC now says enforcement has been pushed back 60 days to July 14.
Some parts of the updated Negative Option Rule went into effect on January 19, but the enforcement of certain provisions were deferred to May 14 by the previous administration to give companies more time to comply. Under the new administration, the FTC says it has “conducted a fresh assessment of the burdens that forcing compliance by this date would impose” and decided it “insufficiently accounted for the complexity of compliance.”
Once the July 14 deadline hits, the FTC says “regulated entities must be in compliance with the whole of the Rule because the Commission will begin enforcing it.” But, the statement adds, “if that enforcement experience exposes problems with the Rule, the Commission is open to amending” it.
Archive link: https://archive.is/7XDVE
“from making it any more difficult for consumers to cancel than it was to sign up.”
Good metric.
Surprising no one, telecom companies were not happy, and sued the FTC.
Hey everyone, this is why your products and services are so expensive! It’s so the owners can live better than you, and use your money against you if taking advantage of you is ever threatened! They don’t need to charge that price, but you’re willing to pay it so that’s what they charge!
Everyone saying “they’re a business and they need to make money” is a useful idiot.
“FTC personnel want bribes and to give the government time to kill the rule so they don’t have to do anything difficult right now”
New headline.
Honestly there’s no legitimate reason to delay this unless you’re stalling for something.
complexity of compliance
Membership status = cancelled. How complex is that? Any payment provider that offers subscriptions, has a way to cancel that subscription (Stripe, WooCommerce, Shopify etc.). If they don’t have time to update their code to call the cancel functionality, then they could literally make the “cancel subscription” button send an email to the ops team, and they manually cancel.
That is just double speak for it will adversely affect our bottom line so we don’t want to do it.
yay!!! i love bureaucracy!!!
It’s funny how fascisms actions involve price gouging, scamming, and screwing workers at every single opportunity.
All our freedoms are for sale to the highest bidder.
It always was. This time… they’re doing it in front of you.
