Comment by collingreen

5 days ago

Thanks for the downvote!

I don't have any problem with the rule, which is why you dont see me arguing against it. I'm also not trying to change the laws by commenting on hn so your advice to not comment and instead call my reps comes off as pretty rude.

I do have a problem with the bad faith take of it costing a bunch of money to pay lawyers and data scientists in order to figure out how to "make it possible to cancel" including things like the examples of cancel buttons that literally don't work. Bad faith from the courts to undermine consumer friendly rules is worth discussion.

You may disagree with that and that's fine - happy to see a good faith response from you (but your goalpost moving requirement of updating all marketing doesn't meet the bar for me there) about why that cost might be higher than I expect. That might be an interesting convo.

1 comment

collingreen

db48x 5 days ago

> but your goalpost moving requirement of updating all marketing doesn't meet the bar for me there

I didn’t move the goalposts here. The new rules that are at issue here were about much more than just providing a button that cancels your subscription. See the actual text of the amendment to the rules <https://www.ftc.gov/system/files/ftc_gov/pdf/p064202_negativ...> if you don’t believe me. But I’ll quote the summary here:

    The Federal Trade Commission (“FTC” or “Commission”) issues final amendments to the Commission’s trade regulation “Rule Concerning Use of Prenotification Negative Option Plans,” retitled the “Rule Concerning Recurring Subscriptions and Other Negative Option Programs” (“Rule,” “final Rule” or “Negative Option Rule”). The final Rule now applies to all negative option programs in any media, and, among other things, (1) prohibits misrepresentations of any material fact made while marketing using negative option features; (2) requires sellers to provide important information prior to obtaining consumers’ billing information and charging consumers; (3) requires sellers to obtain consumers’ unambiguously affirmative consent to the negative option feature prior to charging them; and (4) requires sellers to provide consumers with simple cancellation mechanisms to immediately halt all recurring charges.