The latest consumer protection rule by the Biden-Harris administration's FTC aims to make canceling subscriptions easier for Americans. Why
"The target of the latest consumer protection rule unveiled by the Biden-Harris administration's Federal Trade Commission on Wednesday is, as one journalist said, "one of those things that sounds minor but is at the heart of many of the frustrations of American life": The hoops people in the U.S. are required to jump through to cancel subscriptions or services they no longer want or need.
The FTC announced that its "click-to-cancel" rule, part of the agency's review of the 1973 Negative Option Rule, was finalized and will go into effect 180 days after it is published in the Federal Register.
Under the rule, sellers will be required to "make it as easy for consumers to cancel their enrollment as it was to sign up," said the FTC."
At least 11 states this year enacted laws to restrict the use of PFAS — often called “forever chemicals”— in a wide array of consumer goods
"Legislative momentum against PFAS has surged this year, as at least 11 states enacted laws to restrict the use of “forever chemicals” in everyday consumer products or professional firefighting foam.
The legislation includes bans on PFAS in apparel, cleaning products, cookware, and cosmetic and menstrual products. Meanwhile, lawmakers in some states also passed measures that require industries to pay for testing or cleanup; order companies to disclose the use of PFAS in their products; and mandate or encourage the development of PFAS alternatives, according to Safer States, an alliance of environmental health groups focused on toxic chemicals.
In total this year, at least 16 states adopted 22 PFAS-related measures, according to the group. Since 2007, 30 states have approved 155 PFAS policies, the vast majority of them in the past five years.
The thousands of chemicals categorized as perfluoroalkyl and polyfluoroalkyl substances, or PFAS, do not naturally break down and are found in the blood of 97% of Americans. Some PFAS compounds can harm the immune system, increase cancer risks and decrease fertility...
Earlier this year, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency released new standards limiting PFAS in drinking water. Water systems have five years to comply with the rules. Even before the EPA action, 11 states had set their own limits on PFAS in drinking water, starting with New Jersey in 2018.
Water utilities and chemical manufacturers are challenging the new EPA standards. But states also are heading to the courthouse: So far, 30 states have sued PFAS manufacturers or key users for contaminating water supplies and other natural resources, according to Safer States...
Sarah Doll, national director of Safer States, said one reason states have been so successful in enacting PFAS limits is that more companies are willing to stop using the chemicals.
“When California restricted PFAS in textiles, all of a sudden you saw companies like REI saying, ‘We can, we’re going to do that. We’re going to move to alternatives,’” Doll said.
In Vermont, state lawmakers in April unanimously approved a measure banning the manufacture and sale of PFAS in cosmetics, menstrual products, incontinence products, artificial turf, textiles and cookware.
“The same as everyone else, like Democrats, we want to make sure that we remove PFAS and get it out of products as soon as we can,” said Vermont Republican state Rep. Michael Marcotte, who said his district includes cosmetics manufacturer Rozelle Cosmetics, in Westfield.
Democratic state Sen. Virginia Lyons, the chief sponsor of the Vermont bill, said it is particularly important to get PFAS out of products that are essential to consumers.
“There are some consumer products where you can say, ‘I don’t need to buy that, because I don’t want PFAS,’” Lyons said. “But it’s really tough to say that [about] a menstrual product.”
California’s latest PFAS measure, which Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom signed last month, specifically bans the use of PFAS in menstrual products. Democratic Assemblymember Diane Papan, the author of the bill, said it was particularly strong because it covers both intentional and unintentional uses of PFAS, so “manufacturers will have to really be careful about what comes in their supply chain.”
While more states enact laws focused on specific products, Maine is preparing to implement the world’s first PFAS ban covering all consumer goods. The Maine law, which is scheduled to take effect in 2030, will include exceptions for “essential” products for which PFAS-free alternatives do not exist. Washington state has also taken a sweeping approach by giving regulators strict timelines to ban PFAS in many product categories.
In 2024, we had to get a new TV, because the other one got a big old crack in the screen while spring cleaning (woops!)
So, we went to Best buy, and searched high and low.
Eventually, we realized the horrifying truth: they did not carry any basic TVs, they *only* carry Smart TVs, which come preloaded with a bunch of apps, advertisements, and require an internet connection.
After scouring various other retailer's websites and realizing with growing horror and frustration that the only TVs for sale are Smart TVs, we settled on the cheapest, older flatscreen they had, and used it just the same as we did our old tv: no Internet connection, no using smart apps, just using an HMDI cable with a PC and a PS4 to watch movies, play games, and have an adblocker on YouTube.
That was just under two years ago.
Last night, with absolutely zero prompting, in pristine condition save for a bit of dust, the screen suddenly got covered in static in the lower half of the screen, then very ominously faded inwards to black.
And since then, the screen has been completely, utterly dead. Sound still comes through, but the only reason I know that is because I can navigate from the TVs home screen to the input menu and select the relevant HDMI input by the ear, counting the number of clicks to get past the app-launchers and wifi sign-ins to find the practically-hidden external input options, and then playing sound on my PC which doesn't have its own speakers.
So, a brand-new tv, less than two years old, has gone from working perfectly, to having a completely dead backlight.
In less than 24 months of use.
Previous TVs we owned lasted over a decade, and were only replaced, not because the backlight went out all in one go, but because the screen had begun to fade to grey, with single dead pixels suspended in the screen like stars in the night sky. We used the TV in that state happily for multiple more years, until it was too faded to see properly and had to get a new one, which only broke because of an accident while spring cleaning, through no fault of its own.
Now, a brand new TV, riddled with pre-downloaded apps and advertisements and wants you to connect to the Internet at all times, died in less than 2 years.
And who knows?
Maybe it wouldn't have suddenly died if we had connected it to the Internet and allowed ourselves to be bombarded with unskippable ads and had our viewing data mined by Amazon.... There's already been lawsuits about Tv brands being used for mass surveillance and just two weeks ago, Samsung was the first to settle in the lawsuit, now being forced to rewrite their privacy statement and get "explicit consent" to collect user data from their smart TVs, as though the privacy policies are not specifically designed to be a load of legal jargon the average person has no patience or hope to decode, and usually cannot even be opted out of.
This is enshittification.
This is Planned Obsolescence.
This is a Capitalist Surveillance State.
This is what happens when everything becomes an ad, and companies no longer make products that last, they make products that last just long enough to go past the warranty, then die, forcing consumers to shell out more money for another product that will probably die in the same, or an even shorter time frame.
The so-called "Click to Cancel" rule will require businesses to make it as easy for you to cancel your subscription as it was to sign up.
New York City will be implementing a "click to cancel" rule effective in October. Junk fees and nuisance fees are also being targeted.
Mayor Zohran Mamdani announced a first-of-its-kind rule to protect New Yorkers from subscription traps and junk fees.
The so-called "Click to Cancel" rule will require businesses to make it as easy for you to cancel your subscription as it was to sign up.
He made the announcement alongside New York City Department of Consumer and Worker Protection (DCWP) Commissioner Samuel A.A. Levine and other officials on Friday.
"I think many of us have come to feel this is inevitable," Levine said. "The feeling like we're navigating a minefield when we're shopping is simply the price of modern convenience."
The rules, which go into effect in October, will protect residents from being trapped in never ending subscriptions, like at gyms and hotels, and by hidden junk fees.
It's astonishing how much money is being sucked out of consumers by such practices.
The Click-to-Cancel Rule alone is estimated to save New Yorkers up to $162.5 million per year.
"For years, companies have built their business model around making it harder for working people to hold onto their money," Mayor Mamdani said. "Whether it's hidden fees that suddenly appear at checkout or subscriptions that take one click to sign up for and a dozen steps to cancel, the result is the same: working people pay more while corporations profit. That ends now. If you can sign up with one click, you can cancel with one click."
This is a first of its kind law. Other jurisdictions should consider adopting similar rules.
I'm not exactly sure whether this covers only people who live in NYC or anybody who tries to cancel when in the city. If it's the latter, there could be a small spurt in "cancellation tourism" where people commute from nearby areas to cancel subscriptions or conduct business with companies notorious for junk fees.
BTW, there had been something similar in place by the Biden administration but it bit the dust under Trump.
A similar federal rule was put into place by Lina Khan when she was chair of the Federal Trade Commission during the Biden administration.
It has since been blocked by the courts during the Trump administration.
Kahn is now a Mamdani advisor, and is spearheading implementing it on the city level.
