Washington, D.C. — Following a vote from the Federal Trade Commission to finalize its “click to cancel” rule, which forbids subscription and membership services from making it difficult for consumers to unsubscribe from services or halt recurring payments, the American Economic Liberties Project released the following statement.

“This commonsense rule is another clear example of how enforcers are stopping corporations from cheating consumers,” said Nidhi Hegde, Interim Executive Director at the American Economic Liberties Project. “From gym memberships to cable, nearly everyone has an experience getting trapped in the digital quicksand of subscription cancellation. It’s blatantly unfair and anticompetitive for corporations to trick the American people into paying for services they no longer want. This rule lays out a straightforward framework that fits our current digital economy. It’s a clear win for fairness and transparency in the marketplace, and we applaud the FTC for working to get it done.”

In 2023, the Federal Trade Commission proposed its “click to cancel rule,” which takes aim at the thousands of online services that make it easy for consumers to sign up for a free trial, load them up with recurring charges, and then direct them to an opaque process to make cancellation of said service as hard as possible. After thousands of comments from consumers, small business workers, and advocates, the final rule will:

• Set clear, enforceable, performance-based requirements
• Apply to all subscription features in all media
• Make sure people understand and agree to what they’re buying
• Make sure people can cancel without jumping through lots of hoops

In October 2021, the FTC issued an enforcement policy statement which warned companies to stop using misleading tactics to trap consumers into a subscription service and then make it hard to cancel. As said in the statement, these deceptive tactics take shape through confusing language, a lack of sign up notice, obstacles to cancelling a subscription service, and more.

Learn more about Economic Liberties here.

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The American Economic Liberties Project works to ensure America’s system of commerce is structured to advance, rather than undermine, economic liberty, fair commerce, and a secure, inclusive democracy. Economic Liberties believes true economic liberty means entrepreneurs and businesses large and small succeed on the merits of their ideas and hard work; commerce empowers consumers, workers, farmers, and engineers instead of subjecting them to discrimination and abuse from financiers and monopolists; foreign trade arrangements support domestic security and democracy; and wealth is broadly distributed to support equitable political power.