- It is often very easy to set up a subscription to a service, but it is even more difficult to cancel it
- In the US, the Federal Trade Commission has approved an unsubscribe rule
- The goal is to avoid obstructions and not force people to pay for something they don’t want
The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) in the USA announced the approval of the Click-to-Cancel rule. This is for users to have the possibility to cancel the service subscription easily. The rule is a response to obstructions that some companies apply if a user decides to cancel a subscription. The provision will take effect within 180 days of its publication in the Federal Register.
The main points of the new regulation are obligations for sellers: they cannot misrepresent important informationmust clearly inform about conditions before obtaining payment data and must obtain informed consent consumers with automatic payments. In addition must provide a simple way to cancel this service easily and quickly.
This change is in response to frequent consumer complaints that recurring services are difficult to unsubscribe or cancel, resulting in people paying for something they no longer want. If you’ve ever tried to cancel any subscription, you might have come across the a long and complicated processwhen positive and negative answers alternate. I once had to go through the process of signing out of an unnamed streaming service several times myself, where it looked like I was already signed out, but still had to confirm something somewhere.
The change also addresses a practice known as “Negative option”. This is a situation where a consumer is automatically charged for a certain service or product on a recurring basis (e.g. a subscription), until the consumer actively cancels their membership or subscription. In practice, this may mean, for example, that a consumer agrees to a free trial, but when it ends, they are automatically charged without further notice until they unsubscribe.
We can only hope that the European Union will adopt something similar. The Play Store is also full of similar practices, where the application offers weekly trial periods and a subsequent high annual payment. They rely on the user forgetting to unsubscribe.
Have you encountered a subscription that was complicated to cancel?
Source: FTC
Source: www.svetandroida.cz