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The Federal Trade Commission voted Friday<\/a> to delay enforcement of the Negative Option Rule \u2014 known widely as the \u201cclick-to-cancel\u201d rule requiring companies to make it as easy to cancel a subscription as it was to sign up.<\/p>\n The rule, which was first proposed in 2023<\/a>, took aim at businesses selling physical and digital subscriptions \u2014 everything from streaming services to gym memberships \u2014 through simple signup flows, only to have customers discover later that they have to go through a much more complex or time-consuming process to cancel.<\/p>\n Under the Negative Option Rule, businesses would not be able to force customers to cancel subscriptions through a method different from the one they used to sign up \u2014 so if you signed up with a few clicks on a company\u2019s website, you should be able cancel on their website, too. Companies are also required to provide relevant information about cancellation before they collect customers\u2019 payment information.<\/p>\n According to the FTC, the rule went into effect<\/a> on January 19, but enforcement of some provisions was delayed until May 14. Now the FTC is delaying enforcement by another 60 days, until July 14.<\/p>\n \u201cHaving conducted a fresh assessment of the burdens that forcing compliance by this date would impose, the Commission has determined that the original deferral period insufficiently accounted for the complexity of compliance,\u201d the FTC said in a statement.<\/p>\n The commission voted 3-0 to delay enforcement. The FTC traditionally has five commissioners \u2014 three from the president\u2019s party and two from the opposing party \u2014 but President Donald Trump fired the two Democratic commissioners<\/a> in March. Those commissioners then sued Trump<\/a>, arguing their firing violates a Supreme Court precedent that the president cannot fire FTC commissioners without cause.<\/p>\n Despite the delay, the FTC said it will indeed begin enforcement July 14, when \u201cregulated entities must be in compliance.\u201d<\/p>\n Techcrunch event<\/p>\n \n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tBerkeley, CA<\/span>
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\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tJune 5<\/span>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n