The Federal Trade Commission voted on Friday to delay enforcement of the negative options rules. This is widely known as the “click” rule that requires businesses to easily cancel subscriptions, similar to signing up.
The rules, first proposed in 2023, aimed to sell companies selling physical and digital subscriptions (from streaming services to gym memberships) through a simple sign-up flow.
Negative options rules prevent companies from forcing customers to cancel their subscriptions via different methods than they used to sign up. So, if you sign up by clicking on the company website a few times, you can also cancel on the website. The company must also provide relevant information about the cancellation before collecting customer payment information.
According to the FTC, the rules came into effect on January 19th, but some provisions were delayed until May 14th. Currently, the FTC is delaying its execution for another 60 days until July 14th.
“After conducting a new assessment of the burden of enforcing compliance by this date, the committee has determined that the original delay period does not fully explain the complexity of compliance,” the FTC said in a statement.
The committee voted 3-0 to delay enforcement. The FTC has traditionally had five commissioners — three from the Presidential Party and two from the opposition — when President Donald Trump fired two Democrats in March. Those committee members then sued Trump, claiming their firing violated the Supreme Court precedent that the president could not fire FTC committee members without reason.
Despite the delay, the FTC said it would actually begin enforcement on July 14th, “regulated entities must be compliant.”
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“Of course, if their enforcement experience reveals a problem with the rules, the committee is open to modifying the rules to address such issues,” the FTC added.
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