Mandy Rice-Davies Applies*

The Federal Trade Commission is proposing that quitting a service should be as easy as signing up.

If it is one click to sign up, then it is one click to cancel.

Cable companies are strongly objecting to this, because they have created an entire infrastructure to shame and guilt people into not dumping their evil cable provider.  (But I repeat myself)

This is self serving codswallop:

Lobbyists for cable companies and advertisers yesterday expressed their displeasure with a proposed "click-to-cancel" regulation that aims to make it easier for consumers to cancel services.

Federal Trade Commission Chair Lina Khan has said that changes are needed because "some businesses too often trick consumers into paying for subscriptions they no longer want or didn't sign up for in the first place." The FTC proposed the new set of rules in March 2023, and comments from industry groups were taken yesterday in a hearing presided over by an administrative law judge.

NCTA-The Internet & Television Association, the primary trade group for cable companies like Comcast and Charter, said the rule would make it harder to offer deals to customers who are trying to cancel.

"The proposed simple click-to-cancel mechanism may not be so simple when such practices are involved. A consumer may easily misunderstand the consequences of canceling and it may be imperative that they learn about better options," NCTA CEO Michael Powell said at the hearing. For example, a customer "may face difficulty and unintended consequences if they want to cancel only one service in the package," as "canceling part of a discounted bundle may increase the price for remaining services."

Bullshit.

I'm aware of their practices, and it is little more than browbeating.  This is not done in the best interest of the customer.

The last time that a cable company might have done something in the best interest of their customers, was the late Queen of Elizabeth still held the title of, "Empress of India."

Powell said this kind of bullshit when was the GW Bush appointed chairman of the FCC as well.He's always been the cable companies' bitch. 

………

The FTC said one of its proposed rules "would require businesses to make it at least as easy to cancel a subscription as it was to start it. For example, if you can sign up online, you must be able to cancel on the same website, in the same number of steps."

Sellers would also have to obtain customer consent before they "pitch additional offers or modifications when a consumer tries to cancel their enrollment," the FTC said. Before making those pitches, sellers would have to "ask consumers whether they want to hear them. In other words, a seller must take 'no' for an answer and upon hearing 'no' must immediately implement the cancellation process."

The FTC also proposes that sellers be required to "provide an annual reminder to consumers enrolled in negative option programs involving anything other than physical goods, before they are automatically renewed."

At yesterday's hearing, the FTC also heard from the Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB), a lobby group for the online advertising industry. "The proposed rule would disrupt the current regime by adding specific requirements dictating what auto-renewal disclosures must say and how they must be presented," said Lartease Tiffith, the IAB's executive VP for public policy.

Mr. Tiffith, you are saying this like it is a bad thing.

Forcing you to tell customers the truth is a good thing, well except for you are your clients, but you and your clients suck wet farts from dead pigeons.

Fuck the cable companies, and fuck the online advertisers, and fuck their lobbyists like Michael Powell and Lartease Tiffith.  (I am enjoying, "Say fuck January," so much!)

^*This refers quote made by Miss Rice-Davies made in response in a court case related to the Profumo Affair to someone denying an illicit affair. In this case, it means, "Well, they would, wouldn't they?" Which is not a paraphrase.