Nieman Foundation at Harvard
HOME
          
LATEST STORY
How ProPublica reported on homeless encampment sweeps in 11 cities
ABOUT                    SUBSCRIBE
Oct. 16, 2024, 12:18 p.m.
Audience & Social
LINK: www.ftc.gov  ➚   |   Posted by: Laura Hazard Owen   |   October 16, 2024

The days of signing up for a subscription in one click online, then spending an hour on the phone to try to cancel it, will soon be over — and newspaper (and gym, bottled water, clothing rental, you name it) cancellation horror stories will, fingers crossed, be a thing of the past.

On Wednesday, after several years of discussion and a year-long public comment period, the FTC ruled that consumers must be able to cancel subscriptions as easily as they signed up for them. Among other things, businesses “can’t require people to talk to a live or virtual representative to cancel if they didn’t have to do that to sign up.” That part of the ruling goes into effect in 180 days.

From the FTC’s blog post:

You can’t require people to talk to a live or virtual representative to cancel if they didn’t have to do that to sign up.

If you’re offering phone cancellation, you can’t charge extra for that service, and you have to answer the phone or take a message during normal business hours. If you take a message, you have to respond to people promptly.

If people originally signed up for your program in person, you can offer them the opportunity to cancel in person if they want to, but you can’t require it. Instead, you need to offer a way for people to cancel online or on the phone.

Individual states have passed their own cancellation-related legislation; last month, for instance, the state of California passed its own “click to cancel” legislation, building on a 2018 state law that made online cancellation easier. The FTC’s ruling won’t supersede state laws that are stricter than its new guidelines.

The FTC received more than 16,000 public comments on the proposed rule, it said. A lengthy footnote in the final ruling contains some of them. (For more, see our 2021 package on why people cancel news subscriptions.)

Show tags
 
Join the 60,000 who get the freshest future-of-journalism news in our daily email.
How ProPublica reported on homeless encampment sweeps in 11 cities
Homelessness is at a record high, and there are many investigative stories to tell. ProPublica compiled some of the tips and lessons its reporters learned.
Meet the first-ever policy and advocacy director at LION Publishers
“If policy is being crafted that impacts our members, I think it’s important that we are making efforts to help shape it to their benefit. The sausage-making is going to happen whether we choose to be a part of it or not.”
A new outlet covers climate policy in the language Brazil knows best: Soccer.
With quippy headlines, a “betting” portal, a tournament bracket, and more, Central da COP is pulling out all the stops to inform Brazilians ahead of the next U.N. Climate Change Conference.