Publishers and Advertisers Push Back at FTC’s ‘Click-to-Cancel’ Proposal

Trade groups representing publishers, advertisers and videogame companies have come out against the Federal Trade Commission’s proposed requirement that companies offer consumers an easy click-to-cancel way to get out of subscriptions and memberships.

The FTC earlier this year proposed a rule that would require companies to make it as easy for customers to stop recurring charges as it is to sign up to them. That would mean an end to onerous “click to subscribe, call to cancel” routines and other systems designed to introduce friction into the cancellation process.

Some consumers have complained of feeling trapped by deliberately tricky cancellation mechanisms, a problem lately exacerbated by the sheer number and variety of recurring-payment memberships now on the market, according to the FTC.

“The way [some companies] act is close to fraud, as delays can carry you forward for another month you really didn’t want to pay for,” one consumer said in a comment to the FTC about its proposal. “The fact that it also wastes your time and frays your temper is secondary but not negligible.”

“You can’t believe how absolutely frustrating it has become to be unable to subscribe from websites whose information I no longer need or desire, especially those for which I didn’t sign up,” another consumer told the commission. 

But in other responses to the FTC, which closed the comments period on the proposal in June, publishers and advertisers say some of the commission’s ideas would induce new headaches for consumers and companies alike, and argue that the system works fine as it is. 

“The use of automatic renewals for newspaper and magazine subscriptions does not result in pervasive complaints and dissatisfied consumers,” said the News/Media Alliance, a trade group for publishers, in a comment submitted to the commission. N/MA members receive “very few complaints” about cancellation mechanisms, the group said. News Corp, the parent company of The Wall Street Journal publisher Dow Jones, is a member of the association.

The FTC’s proposal could cause new frustrations for customers because they have become used to protracted procedures, according to the Association of National Advertisers.

“If sellers are required to enable cancellation through a single click or action by the consumer, accidental cancellations will become much more common, as consumers will not reasonably expect to remove their recurring goods or services with just one click,” the advertisers’ group said in its comments on the proposal.

Inadvertent cancellations could cause consumers to miss out on essential deliveries of food, water or medical products, and could create the inconvenience of requiring the consumer to register again for a service they didn’t intend to cancel in the first place, the ANA said.

Trade groups say making the cancellation process a multilayered event—often involving logging in with a password, and double checking that a consumer wants to end a subscription—protects consumers and sellers.

In videogaming, the process of signing up to recurring payments often presents itself in the middle of gameplay, although cancellation options are often found in a users’ account settings, the Entertainment Software Association said in a comment. And when canceling, many videogames display information about the in-game benefits the customer will lose before cancellation is completed, the association said. 

“These methods are both reasonable and simple cancellation pathways that are designed to be effective and reduce customer frustration, but appear to be prohibited under this new requirement because they are not symmetrical to the sign-up experience,” the group added.

Companies also often try to stop customers from leaving by offering them better deals before they complete the cancellation process. A “call to cancel” mechanism lets some companies personalize a better deal for a would-be fleeing customer, and better understand why customers are leaving, some customer experience executives say.

N/MA said sellers should be able to offer alternatives “as long as the customer does not have to take additional actions to proceed directly to cancellation,” the group said in its comments to the commission.

The FTC said it is considering the comments on its proposal and declined to comment on its next steps. 

Write to Katie Deighton at [email protected]