New York Set to Become First US City to Ban Deceptive Subscription Schemes

New York is poised to become the first city in the US to legally ban the practice of deceptive subscription sign-ups. This is reported by The Guardian.

At issue are widespread market tactics in which services make it difficult for users to cancel a subscription, automatically renew it without explicit consent, or hide payment terms behind a convoluted interface. Such practices have long drawn criticism from consumers and regulators, yet they have not until now been the subject of a dedicated city-level ban in the US.

News of New York's initiative attracted considerable attention from the community: the post on Hacker News gathered 200 points and 79 comments, which speaks to the strong interest developers and IT specialists have in the transparency of subscription models.

The details of the bill itself — when it takes effect, the specific requirements for businesses, and the enforcement mechanisms — are not disclosed in the available source. Even so, the very emergence of such an initiative at the level of a major city could set a benchmark for other US jurisdictions, where questions of regulating subscription services still fall under the purview of federal authorities or individual states.

If the initiative is carried out, New York will become the country's first city with its own rules against “dark patterns” in subscription sign-ups — practices that are already regulated in a number of other countries and at the level of individual US states.

Source: Hacker News