Illustration by Laura Normand / The Verge
The US Federal Trade Commission is taking action against subscriptions that are difficult to get rid of. On Wednesday, it adopted a final “click-to-cancel” rule requiring businesses to make canceling a subscription as easy as signing up.
Under the rule, businesses can’t force customers to cancel a subscription using a method different from how they signed up. For example, if you signed up for a subscription with an online form, companies can’t require you to call them or chat with a live agent to cancel. The FTC will also require businesses to clearly disclose the terms of their subscriptions and get customer consent before charging them.
The rule, which was first proposed last year, applies to any automatically renewing subscription,…