'Click-to-cancel' rule is blocked | Hacker News Reader

'Click-to-cancel' rule is blocked

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102 pointsgok79 comments

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(577 points, 3 days ago, 533 comments) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44504699

(225 points, 2 days ago, 31 comments) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44505675

If it's going to cost the industry more than $100m then it's going to cost consumers more than $100m. What a scam.

Question is, what is a preliminary regulatory analysis and how much of a hurdle would that have been.

This assumes costs are zero-sum when in reality the current system already imposes significant hidden costs on consumers through wasted time, accidental continued subscriptions, and frustration.

Since GP said “more than”, I don’t think they are assuming the absence of hidden costs.

I'm absolutely in favor of the rule, but this is simply not true. Mandating everyone to implement changes in how their software works will incur huge costs, no matter what the change is, even if there were zero benefit or savings for anyone.

> Mandating everyone to implement changes in how their software works will incur huge costs

I'm sorry but if the companies bottom line depends on forgotten subscriptions you dont get to cry foul when your dark practices need to be removed.

This has nothing to do with forgotten subscriptions or dark practices.

Nearly any mandated changes to nearly any company's software no matter what business they are in will incur costs. The FTC is required to take extra care when regulating in the case when those costs will be high.

I’d argue that it costs more to implement and maintain dark patterns in the software than to do happy paths. It also costs customers time and money to jump through hoops to end service you don’t want and need.

In MAGA terms - if your business cannot survive in free market competition without scam schemes - it’s “unamerican” and shouldn’t be a business.

>I’d argue that it costs more to implement and maintain dark patterns in the software than to do happy paths.

I would agree with this argument. After all, you have to staff the customer service phone lines now to cancel service. It follows that presumably customer service's capacity to retain customers/revenue is profitable after factoring in costs for their wages and overhead. Dark patterns may cost money vs light patterns, but they also may have more net profit.

mandating changes for power generation to stop polluting as much, for car manufacturers to make safer cars, for chemical plants to stop dumping toxic waste in water supplies all also cost a lot, but we make them do it anyway

They absolutely do not need 23 hours of lawyers + programmers + designers + etc to comply with the law.

There are numerous states with an existing "click to cancel" regulation. If you're compliant with those states then that implementation was federally compliant as well.

The only huge cost is a drop in revenue not an increase in cost.

As it should have been. Even if you (as I do) agree with the rule itself, it needs to be implemented in the correct way. Otherwise you end up in a world where there is no rule of law; and in turn no rights except for those in power. Sometimes those in power might be on your side, but that doesn't mean they are right. You need to oppose the way this rule was passed in all cases because otherwise you have nothing to work with when some other rule is passed that you don't like.

Can you explain what part of the rule you believe was being implemented incorrectly?

I guess they’re remark is about the process, not about the rule change itself. (FTA) “the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit said this week that the FTC made a procedural error by failing to come up with a preliminary regulatory analysis, which is required for rules whose annual impact on the U.S. economy is more than $100 million.”

So, basically, for largish changes, the rules say you have to do some/lots of (I wouldn’t know which) extra work to check that a change will have the intended effect.

See other reply first, I won't cover it.

This should be a law that congress passes, not a rule that the executive branch passes. Demand your congressmen do their job my encoding this into a real law.

Congress can't. There is too much bad blood. Everything is viewed in through a partisan lens. If you want it, it must be bad for me, somehow.

Nor does it help to have a joint proposal. People who work across the aisle are seen as traitors -- they cannot be trusted to do the vital work of shooting down everything that the other side proposes.

It doesn't matter if the proposal is overwhelmingly supported. You will get very little credit from your constituents even if it passes. As much as people would like this bill, it's nobody's top priority.

Congress is barely able to pass anything. Frequently, it can't even pass a budget -- the basic operation of just keeping the lights on. Everything else is renaming post offices.

The entire point of the civil service is to pass basic functionality off onto a nonpartisan set of functionaries. But those functionaries are now widely considered the enemy, and so that method of accomplishing governance is also blocked. Congress will not re-open it, for exactly the same reasons that governance was blocked in the first place.

> Otherwise you end up in a world where there is no rule of law; and in turn no rights except for those in power.

glances around nervously

I guess my hope here was at least there would be _something_. Trying to unsubscribe from spam is an absolute disaster now. CAN-SPAM is a joke. The only option I really have is blocking senders, which is an endless game of whack-a-mole.

The rule itself was fine, but we need to ensure it is made in the right way. Go demand it be created again - but this time do it right.

i use throw-away email aliases then set them to bounce/reject all email after im done with them

i discovered a quest lab in my area that was either hacked or had someone working there that sold my email address to scammers since it was the only place i ever gave that unique email to. scary world!

Strange how the courts only start to nitpick if it pro consumer

You just don't notice all their other nitpicking the courts are doing.

I agree in principal. The more interesting development would be if the current FTC takes this as a queue to silently drop the initiative, or if the single judge who decided it would have a different impact than the FTC claimed was acting in good faith

<RANT>

I recently tried to downgrade Xfinity service. App did not have the button so I had to call. First, I had to battle my way out of the robotic loop. Then, when I finally got to a human support person, they kept trying to upsell me on additional services. I told them that I wanted to downgrade. Since this would probably would hurt their performance score, they redirected me to another rep after fiddling for 30 minutes.

When I was transferred, I became more angry. I finally got the new rep to downgrade my service when I threatened to cancel. All-in-all the whole thing took about an hour.

</RANT>

We absolutely need 1-click cancellation or plan change buttons on these service providers' websites.

What is crazy is my last experience with Xfinity (6 months ago) went like this:

Me: You guys upped my bill from $45/mo to $110/mo, I'd like to go back to my old price or cancel.

Xfinity: Are you sure?

Me: Yes.

Xfinity: Okay, we are sorry to see you leave, please stay on the line for a survey.

It was the first time I spent less than 10 minutes on the phone with them. Thankfully they were our back-up internet when our fiber went down.

> An administrative law judge decided that the economic impact would be more than the $100 million threshold.

I do find it fascinating that one administrator has the ability to claim, seemingly from thin air, that it would be more than 100mil and so cancel the entire rule. Wouldn't it be better if the rule was reviewed AFTER the year to determine if modifications or Analysis should be performed?

Seems that when it comes to consumer protections in the US the companies are ALWAYS given the benefit of the doubt.

That's why I call it United States of Corporations. A world in which people bow down to companies as their overlords, defend them fiercely, at the expense of personal freedom, financial ability, and general life quality. Could also bring parallels to a religion in which its followers commit sacrifices for their deity, and to the point that if there's somewhere that does things differently, like EU, they get upset and want them to stop doing things differently, because there is only one true deity in this world (corporations).

Hum... To be fair, it's extremely unlikely that something like this, that impacts about every company that sells subscriptions can have an impact lower than $100 million.

I have no idea why the US FTC didn't do an impact analysis. I have no idea even how they decided of deadlines for compliance without one. (It's not easy to write a decision like this without some data.)

But yeah, the US consumer protection is really lacking, and this decision only reinforces it.

The rules only blocked for the companies that sued?

Oh, it's a nation wide injunction; Not really a rule of law ruling then?

Wait—I thought nationwide injunctions were no longer allowed? Because they were being used to halt blatantly-illegal actions by the administration?

"Given the breadth of the Rule’s coverage, the party-specific vacatur requested by the Commission is not feasible. Accordingly, we grant the petitions for review and vacate the Rule."

https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.ca8.110...

I'm afraid without elaborating at least a little bit on the context, this does not tell me anything about the correctness of my (slightly tongue-in-cheek) statement.

Is the case you linked the case from this article? Is it the case from the ruling preventing nationwide injunctions? If the former, does it mean that this injunction gets around the ruling? If the latter, does it provide a limitation on the ruling that would allow this injunction?

Not everyone has, nor should they be expected to have, comprehensive knowledge of both legal jargon and the specific details of any given case or set of cases, y'know. This comment mostly reads as "look at me, I know how to quote legalese in a way that only other people who are also on the inside can understand. I am very intelligent."

> I'm afraid without elaborating at least a little bit on the context, this does not tell me anything about the correctness of my (slightly tongue-in-cheek) statement.

Nationwide injunctions are technically still allowed. The birthright citizenship case mostly means that judges _shouldn't_ do them though.

> Is the case you linked the case from this article?

Its for the "click-to-cancel" case. I don't think it's too much to ask to open the link and see that the actual text of the lawsuit starts immediately talking about click-to-cancel.

> This comment mostly reads as "look at me, I know how to quote legalese in a way that only other people who are also on the inside can understand. I am very intelligent."

The comment was more of "our court systems are become partisan hacks". Rules against the party's desires cannot be injected nationwide but rules assisting the party's desires can be.

There's certainly more people in this country with birthright citizenship than companies affected by click-to-cancel.

I strongly advise everyone to use a disposable virtual card; use it to subscribe, wait to get charged and delete it right away.

This way, it's impossible for them to charge you for renewal. You can even forget about cancelling.

I can't find the post, but I recall reading an instance where someone used a disposable virtual card for a subscription service. After deleting the card, the company was somehow able to charge the user directly on the bank account that was linked to the digital card.

I hear this advice but there's one point I don't understand. Aren't you still owing the company money for the subscription? Couldn't they just continue providing the service and just send you a overdue notice and try collecting the money?

If you send a clear email to their support channel to cancel your subscription, even if they ignore it, I suspect that may help your case? IANAL and would like to hear if this is a valid strategy.

I don't know how it is in the US. However in Germany, this is a great way to get charged interest on your debt and hefty legal fees. It is also one of the ways to guarantee that you're not getting a new bank account, place to rent or any kind of credit for a while.

My account is a debit one so no way this could happen to me. It's one of the few reasons I use Wise.

The debt is between you and the company offering the subscription, it doesn't matter what type of an account you use. You entered a contractual agreement by signing up and then you didn't pay - or cancel. It's a quirk of the digital world that most companies don't pursue these claims against us in most places. In theory they could tally up your non-payments for the next 2 years and then send it to collections.

I'm not saying this because I agree with it, but because you should still be careful with what you sign up for. Simply declining to pay doesn't legally absolve you of your obligation to pay.

This is a good point.

But if they have very shady and cumbersome cancellation policies and procedures, wouldn't you be able to win by good faith?

I assume you could also lie and say that you lost your card and also prove that you didn't use the service anyway.

This would not fly in a court. I'm writing this again in the context of German legal system (and most of the continental Europe is similar).

To argue a good faith argument, you need to be paying the debt as long as the service is provided. You need to have strong proof that you have tried your best to cancel. Just claiming that you lost your card or not using the service is not an argument. in fact it would aggravate consequences for you since it can be interpreted as a bad faith argument from your side.

Usually this ends up sending them a letter with registration / delivery feedback (Einschreiben or Einwurf in German postal terminology).

The law tries to strike balance between contract law and consumer protection. You get a limited time to cancel without a reason and consequences. The contract also needs to be "fair" for both parties. For example a contract between you and an ISP cannot force you to pay when you move out and the said ISP cannot provide you an equivalent service. So it needs reasonable cancelation clauses for both sides.

Does not need to be virtual. Any Visa/Mastercard/Amex gift card with a $0 balance yields the same results.

I have to admit I don't even know if those exist in my country but this is definitely a good piece of advice too!

Failing to pay a bill does not make the debt go away. If this is a $5 thing then yeah they're not going to bother sending it to collections, but this will turn out badly for anything big enough that they do.

I'll mourn the loss of sensible regulation here.

For now, if the unsubscribe process isn't obvious or takes me more than a couple minutes, I cancel the virtual card I gave that business.

In case of preauthorized charges, a closed credit card account can still be debited, and you’re ultimately liable for repayment.

Yes, this is a ridiculous state of things, but such is the world we live in, here in North America anyway.

In EU we mostly use debit cards (virtual and real), as having debt isn't something most people want to have, and credit cards inherently mean debt. Apart from that, you can't really use the card for payments without authorization. Someone types in my card's info in some payment form? I get a SmartID (https://www.smart-id.com/) verification request, further making credit cards not very useful (I understand security is why North Americans use credit cards?).

Being liable for preauthorized charges sounds reasonable to me unless we're talking about an expanding use of preauthorization into areas it wasn't used before. It's rare for me to encounter this apart from hotels, car rentals?

> I cancel the virtual card I gave that business.

Then you get sent to collections and pay with your credit report

Hasn't happened to me and I've cancelled this way over a dozen times. What sort of businesses have you heard of doing this vs ending your service?

I hear this a lot about gym memberships

https://www.wcvb.com/article/mass-woman-struggles-to-cancel-...

Yeah something is completely broken with American gyms. I tell everyone to avoid them and especially the private trainers they let patrol their floors. There's other ways to maintain fitness than risk being held ransom.

Just days before the FTC’s “Click-to-Cancel” rule was set to take effect in July 2025, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit struck it down. The court ruled that the FTC violated federal procedural requirements by failing to conduct a preliminary regulatory analysis, which is mandatory for any rule expected to have an economic impact exceeding $100 million annually.

Although the FTC initially claimed the rule would fall below that threshold, an administrative law judge later found that compliance costs would exceed it—unless every business somehow managed to implement the rule using fewer than 23 hours of professional services at the lowest possible rate. The court concluded that the FTC’s failure to issue a separate preliminary analysis for public review deprived stakeholders of a meaningful opportunity to challenge or shape the rule, rendering it procedurally invalid.

So no, the unanimous ruling by the Eighth Circuit didn’t kill the Biden-era regulation because the judges were Republican appointees. It was struck down because bureaucratic procedures weren't followed. Its a shame because I believe canceling subscriptions should be easy. It often is not in the U.S. (I’m looking at you adobe)this really undermines consumer interests :(

> unless every business somehow managed to implement the rule using fewer than 23 hours of professional services at the lowest possible rate.

I mean that's one way to comply with "click to cancel". You could also make signing up more difficult and I doubt that would take 23 hours.

lots of big movements going on against corpos eh? we got click to cancel on one end, stop killing games on the other end. we are literally fighting enshittification at this point and they are getting away with it just because it is legal. We gotta win this one

I dig the optimistic view. I wish I felt I could really fight things more often rather than just check out when things turn to shit.(although hopefully I'll be able to leave in one click)

Couldn't even sign the stop killing games thing since that's EU!

This is why we can't have nice things

Ideology is not policy...

Policy is hard. Ideology is easy. Reading these comments, it appears that most of you haven't a clue how the sausage is actually made.

I would like to hear by those that decry the EU's approach to regulating Big Tech how this is great news for consumers!

Ironically it is still on the front page with a lot of people defending big businesses (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44529061). I do hope they don't mind having to jump through hoops to cancel their subscriptions, or they are part of the propaganda (which could be a real thing nowadays).

It will incentivize the bureaucracy to properly follow the rules around notifying the public about proposed regulations when doing this next time. It's a good thing for regulations to go through that process in order to politically help balance the power of the unitary executive. This rule can and likely will pass again with proper procedure. If you think that this administration has seized powers it should not have, you should appreciate that this ruling upholds at least a minor constraint on it.

> If you think that this administration has seized powers it should not have, you should appreciate that this ruling upholds at least a minor constraint on it.

This rule was passed by the Biden administration. Don’t make it about politics when it’s not.

I am critical of the EU's approach, but say what you will, they are at least voting on it in a legislative setting rather than trying to staple it to the coattails of the fringes of their remit.

It is for Congress to act on this, simple as that.

"FTC made a procedural error by failing to come up with a preliminary regulatory analysis, which is required"

Blocked due to "procedural deficiencies".

LoL

Crime, fraud and terrorism continue to be legal.

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