Democrats are desperately trying to revive the click-to-cancel rule

The Verge

5 days ago

is a senior policy reporter at The Verge, covering the intersection of Silicon Valley and Capitol Hill. She spent 5 years covering tech policy at CNBC, writing about antitrust, privacy, and content moderation reform.
Democratic lawmakers are taking multiple routes to try to revive the Federal Trade Commission's 'click-to-cancel' rule after an appeals court blocked it on procedural grounds right before it was set to take effect.
Democrats already introduced legislation earlier this month to codify the rule, which would require subscription services to let customers cancel as easily as they signed up, through congressional vote. But now a group of lawmakers are also pressuring Republican FTC Chair Andrew Ferguson to reinstate it.
Seven Democrats led by Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-MN) appealed to the chair in a letter shared exclusively with The Verge, urging him to revise the rule so that it can take effect. 'Putting this commonsense consumer protection in place is vital to foster competition, innovation, and fairness,' wrote the lawmakers, including Sens. Chris Van Hollen (D-MD) and Ruben Gallego (D-AZ), who are also behind the click-to-cancel legislation.
The click-to-cancel or negative option rule would have barred companies from throwing up roadblocks to ending gym memberships, streaming video subscriptions, and other services — eliminating extra steps of talking to a live agent, for example, to cancel a subscription purchased with a click of a button. But a federal appeals court ruled this month that the rule had to be thrown out because the FTC, under former Democratic Chair Lina Khan, had deprived companies and trade groups that petitioned against the rule a fair chance to talk the agency out of it.
It's not yet clear whether either path toward restoring it will be fruitful, given that passing bills in a deeply divided legislature is a tall task, and Ferguson alongside Republican Commissioner Melissa Holyoak voted against the rule the first time around. But Democrats' insistence on reviving it shows they believe it to be a politically winning consumer protection issue, a position some Republicans might also come around to.
The letter's Democratic signatories argue comments submitted on click-to-cancel show overwhelming support for the measure. 'A review of more than 16,000 comments from the public made clear what should be obvious: Businesses should not be allowed to trap consumers in costly subscriptions by making it difficult to unsubscribe—costing consumers valuable time and money while stifling competition,' the lawmakers wrote. 'We urge the FTC to cure any perceived procedural defect and reissue the rule as quickly as possible to ensure consumers are protected from predatory subscription traps.'
'Businesses should not be allowed to trap consumers in costly subscriptions by making it difficult to unsubscribe'
There's some reason for hope that the FTC could get the rule back on track, even if it might look different than last time around. In her dissenting statement on the original rule, Holyoak wrote that she might have voted differently '[h]ad political leadership at the Commission taken more time to engage with other Commissioners to refine and improve the Rule.'
But that path forward still looks murky, especially in light of President Donald Trump's upheaval of the FTC, an issue that's still working its way through the courts. Trump broke Supreme Court precedent to fire the two Democratic commissioners at the agency earlier this year, removing what could be key votes for the click-to-cancel rule.
Last week, Democratic Commissioner Rebecca Kelly Slaughter, who voted for the rule the first time, returned to work at the FTC after a federal judge ruled that Trump's attempt to fire her was unlawful. Smiling outside the FTC building on the day of her ephemeral return, Slaughter wrote on X that her first priority would be 'calling a vote on restoring the Click to Cancel Rule.' But her return was short-lived, after an appeals court this week granted an emergency stay keeping her from agency work while the case plays out. (Trump also attempted to fire Democratic Commissioner Alvaro Bedoya, who later resigned his position to take another role while the case played out in court. A federal judge dismissed his claims without prejudice).
While pushing for Ferguson to reinstate the rule at the FTC, Klobuchar is also supporting Van Hollen's Consumer Online Payment Transparency and Integrity (Consumer OPT-IN) Act and Gallego's Click to Cancel Consumer Protection Act, which were introduced after the appeals court blocked the FTC rule. But Klobuchar and other Democrats aren't looking at it as an either-or proposition.
'The FTC should always be looking out for consumers and they did the right thing when they issued this rule,' Klobuchar said in a statement. 'Consumers deserve protection from subscription traps and it is time for the FTC to reinstate the rule to do just that.'