Cancelling your unwanted subscriptions will become easier after US regulators introduced a new rule aimed at ending predatory business practices that lock consumers into paying for services they don’t want.
Businesses offering subscriptions from streaming to shopping will be required to make it just as easy to cancel as it is to sign up under the new Federal Trade Commission rules which will apply in six months time.
The FTC said the number of complaints it receives about difficult-to-cancel subscriptions has been on the rise, from an average of 42 a day in 2021, up to 70 a day in 2024.
Companies will also be required to provide clear and truthful information about what customers are signing up for, and obtain consent before enrolling them in a negative option feature – a subscription model that signs you up for a service and continuously charges, unless you take additional (often hidden) steps to reject the subscription.
“Too often, businesses make people jump through endless hoops just to cancel a subscription,” FTC chair Lina Khan said.
“The FTC’s rule will end these tricks and traps, saving time and money. Nobody should be stuck paying for a service they no longer want.”
The agency has also previously sued several prominent tech companies for operating predatory subscription services.
It alleged Amazon “duped’ millions of people into enrolling in Amazon Prime and then made it difficult to cancel those subscriptions.
It also accused Adobe of making it difficult to cancel its services and hiding information about early termination fees that it charged customers when they cancelled.
