Governor Gavin Newsom has signed California’s “click to cancel” Assembly Bill 286 into law to make it easier for consumers to opt out of subscriptions. The bill, introduced in April 2024, forces companies that permit online or in-app sign-ups to allow for online or in-app unsubscribing as well.
"AB 2863 is the most comprehensive ‘Click to Cancel’ legislation in the nation, ensuring Californians can cancel unwanted automatic subscription renewals just as easily as they signed up — with just a click or two,” said California Assemblymember Pilar Schiavo.
Time to set my VPN to California
Will this actually work or will companies go off your billing address? I guess you could probably technically get a proxy address in California for billing. Regardless, this should just be a national law.
Companies that do business in CA will likely follow the law for all of their customers. It’s far more expensive to try to have two systems and possibly handle a CA resident incorrectly.
You underestimate the capacity for corporate pettiness
And how bad is the architecture of their legacy systems.
I assure you they won’t. It’s not going to be that expensive to only show an option if you’re in California. Companies already do this with other things like privacy related stuff.
If the company is already a scumbag company that makes it impossible to cancel, this will only stop them where they have to follow a law.
The reason you see all the pop ups for cookies nowadays is because of GDPR, a European law. It absolutely does work like this. It’s vastly cheaper to run one system then 2 systems. It’s the same reason California emissions laws become defacto laws for the rest of the country.
GDPR has a weird quirk of applying to all EU citizens whether or not they’re currently in the EU. Cars are physical things and it is harder to make different models. A check of “Is California billing address? Show button. No? Don’t show button.” would be trivial to implement and would probably result in enough money to make it worth it.
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It’s expensive if you screw up and handle a CA resident wrong. It’s also easy to get fined, and easy for the fines to scale up.
It’s far more expensive to try to have two systems and possibly handle a CA resident incorrectly.
Apple: Hold my doesn’t-cure-cancer fruit smoothie!
Colorado and California have laws that say you have to list salaries on job postings. As a result, many job posting say “not eligible for residents of Colorado or California” on them, even when the posting is specifically looking for people from those states l.
I’m wondering if this new law has that loophole where companies can just say “hey, we told people from California that our service wasn’t for them. It’s not our fault that they still signed up for it.”
If they don’t mind not doing business in CA then they are probably fine.
Correct. This happens on a global scale too: it’s why everything is using GDPR compliant cookie dialogs now.
Doubt they’ll go by IP location, but there may be a workaround depending on the service.
For example, California already has a similar law around cancelling gym memberships initiated online. Planet Fitness customers can just set their “home gym” to one in California to get access to one-click cancellation, even if their billing address is in another state.
I’d like to say that companies will just make this the standard for everyone, like they did with California emissions standards for cars, but the reality is that it will be very difficult to take action against a company that doesn’t have their headquarters in California. This isn’t like GDPR where a large federal government will fine you into oblivion if you fail to comply while doing business in their jurisdiction. A lot of companies will probably just ignore this.
Well shit… that’s an amazing idea.
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Hahahahahahahahahahahaha
Neither. They’ll ignore the law completely because the $3.50 fine they’ll have to pay (in the extremely rare chance anyone powerful enough notices in the first place) will be worth it to them and the ones that aren’t based in California will never see real consequences for ignoring the law.
Yaaaaaaaayyyy!!!
i wish the phrase “maybe later” would be forced to be changed to “no”. The word no has disappeared!
F&$)@+ everything about “maybe later”. It was the last nail in the coffin for me, any company giving me that bullshit is immediately on my shit list and will be cut out, I’ll never do business with you ever again. Every new service I have is open source and self hosted, the only ones left that are not are Netflix, Spotify and (unfortunately for reasons) YouTube. Netflix will be put soon because arr matey, and Spotify will follow soon as well.
I’m done with services and media from companies
You can use pinchflat or tube archivist to “self-host” youtube as well. It still obviously gets the content from Google’s servers but lets you manage the videos locally (and even apply Sponsorblock if you like)
Hot damn, that’s EU-level based. Nicely done!
I expect a ruling from SCOTUS that this somehow breaxhes corporation’s 1st amendment rights
It’s arguably unconstitutional even before that. Article 1 section 10, first line, the states may not make laws impairing contracts.
Admittedly it’s thinbut the supreme court has acted on thinner pretext.
As good as this is, it’s just another example of Republicans shrinking the federal government to unsustainable levels. Click-to-cancel will be implemented in California while showing your ID to access porn sites is happening in Texas, but have fun canceling any subscriptions.
So a Democrat win in California shouldn’t be celebrated, because there’s an unrelated pointless Republican law in Texas? What are you on about?
I’m on about the fact that the federal government is so weak that this is the sort of state-to-state bullshit people have to put up with.
That’s literally how the government was designed though. Do you believe that there should be a Constitutional amendment to protect porn and ease of subscription cancellation? I agree that the system is flawed, but a win here deserves to be celebrated even though there was a loss somewhere else.
Is the company in question national or local to CA only? This is the defining line for laws like this. If a company cannot be distinguished from the services it provides in CA vs any other state then the laws of one state should influence all others since the company is not different between states. Unless they create a different website for each state then they will have a hard time verifying if a user really is from CA and be able to apply the law.
I could be visiting CA and sign up for something while there. My address is not CA, my billing address is not CA, I could be using a VPN connected to my home. But I am physically in CA and signed up for Planet fitness online. Now whose laws protect me? CA or my home state?
Reading the law, it looks like it applies if either the business or consumer is in California.
Ok but in a new situation, I signed up online while in CA. Now I am back home and forgot to cancel. How does one go about using the CA law to cancel? The website might have a link that says “CA residents click here” but what if it does a check and you can’t prove by one click you were there in CA when you signed up? These laws then get really tricky to implement. Hence why these kinds of laws that affect national companies should be national laws. Interstate commerce makes it almost impossible to have state laws for this kind of thing.
If neither you nor the business are in California, the law does not apply.
There is a constitutional amendment that protects porn though. The first. What’s changed in Texas isn’t porn’s legality, but restrictions on distribution (though yes, Texas’s law is useless and completely misunderstands the internet’s dynamics)
You do know there can be federal laws without requiring a constitutional amendment, yes?
Sarcasm is not lended to text very well. Can you understand that a state that makes a good law is a good thing and that nuance exists.
Please give me the nuance where a click to cancel law makes sense in California and not in all 49 other states.
You’re being obtuse. I’m done here.
SUN Bucks Summer Food Program for Kids.
Don’t know why you’re being downvoted because it’s true. California signing this into law is great, I do hope this can reach the federal level though.
I’d guess they are being downvoted because they started an absolutely meaningless argument, and now keep dragging it on.
100% par for the course with that commenter too. It’s an absolute waste of time engaging with them.
Sign up in Texas, drive to California and fail to cancel with one click, sue.
But I agree with you, we need something like the GDPR on a federal level.
If only there there were a way we could change that…. Hmmm.
Imo that’s great. The best display of what policies make people’s life better is a stark contrast between two groups implementing opposing systems.
Meanwhile, people suffer.
Yeah, that sucks. I would highly support people making better decisions.
But if they are gonna be stubborn, we might as well learn what not to do for the future.
yes. You should have to do something to opt in to anything and it should be just as easy or easier to leave or opt out. while we are at it can be take financial fees to close accounts out.
The question, as always, is enforcement. It’s a great idea, and good for them for making it happen, and then we’ll find out if they were serious.
