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The End of “Click to Subscribe, Call to Cancel”? - News Industry's Favorite Retention Tactic

posted by janrinok on Friday November 19 2021, @03:50AM   Printer-friendly
from the unsubscirbe dept.

owl writes:

https://www.niemanlab.org/2021/11/the-end-of-click-to-subscribe-call-to-cancel-one-of-the-news-industrys-favorite-retention-tactics-is-illegal-ftc-says/

Discovering they had to get on the phone to cancel a subscription they signed up for online rankled several respondents in our survey looking at why people canceled their news subscriptions. The reaction to the call-to-cancel policy ranged from "an annoyance" and "ridiculous" to "shady" and "oppressive."

Publishers tend to think of this as "retention." A study of 526 news organizations in the United States found that only 41% make it easy for people to cancel subscriptions online, and more than half trained customer service reps in tactics to dissuade customers who call to unsubscribe.

The Federal Trade Commission, meanwhile, recently made it clear that it sees the practice as 1) one of several "dark patterns that trick or trap consumers into subscriptions" and 2) straight-up illegal. The FTC vowed to ramp up enforcement on companies that fail to provide an "easy and simple" cancellation process, including an option that's "at least as easy" as the one to subscribe.

Original Submission

 
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  • (Score: 1, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Friday November 19 2021, @04:23PM (2 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday November 19 2021, @04:23PM (#1197747)

    Jeez, Runaway! Why couldn't you have shared this incredible discovery with the rest of us sooner? Imagine all the suffering you might have prevented.

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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday November 19 2021, @05:08PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday November 19 2021, @05:08PM (#1197759)

    Runaway didn't want to get Bannoned.

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday November 19 2021, @06:17PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday November 19 2021, @06:17PM (#1197774)

    Insufferable clods will suffer despite any advice offered to them. Go suffer elsewhere, please.