The US approves the rule that requires companies to offer a simple mechanism to cancel subscriptions

The United States has approved and published a modification of the rule that until now regulated subscription and loyalty programs to prevent companies from maintaining users with deceptive practices when they want to unsubscribe, so that this process is as simple as click.

The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) approved and published this Wednesday the final rule known as ‘Click to Cancel’, which seeks to enable companies to make the process of canceling a subscription as simple as the one who enrolls them in it.

The new rule, which reviews and updates the 1973 rule, called ‘The Negative Option’, aims to combat the deceptive and unfair practices that companies use to make it difficult for users to unsubscribe from a subscription or loyalty service.

“Too often, companies force people to go through endless procedures to cancel a subscription. The FTC rule will put an end to these tricks and traps, saving Americans time and money,” he said. the president of the Commission, Lina M. Khan, who concluded by arguing that “no one should have to pay for a service they no longer want”, as stated in a press release.

In this way, a legal framework is established to protect consumers, which forces companies to offer a simple cancellation mechanism that immediately ends the service and payments, for example, with just one click.

This must be accompanied by clear, accessible and true information about the service and its clauses, so that consumers can consult it before subscribing and give their express consent if they finally decide to register.

Precisely, in the United States, the Department of Justice denounced Adobe this summer for believing that this software company deceives users with the annual subscription, by not conveniently informing that there is a fee for canceling it early.