FTC announces "click-to-cancel" rule making it easier to cancel subscriptions

The big difference here is that this was created by an act of Congress, not the result of a regulatory body straining at the limits of its remit. That makes it much more likely to survive administration changes or court challenges.

Even now the CAN-SPAM act feels outdated -- I do like the unsubscribe button, but I would like to see email verification made explicitly required. That in order to start emailing you, you need to send an initial engagement email saying that the organization wants to start emailing you, and requiring you to actively opt-in to emails rather than just start sending them.

This would both cut down on marketing spam as well as mistaken email addresses. Most reputable websites do email verification where you have to enter a code or click on a link, but I have a surprising number of emails that get sent to me even though I am not the person the emails were aimed at.

> regulatory body straining at the limits of its remit

The FTC's establishing laws make "unfair or deceptive acts or practices in or affecting commerce" unlawful and give them power to regulate that. It doesn't seem to be straining at the limits of remit to rule that making it hard for people to end a subscription is unfair/deceptive.

I think we should go back the early web idea and just fractionally charge for email.

E.g. $0.001 per email, paid to the recipient

Insignificant at personal scale, but a deterrent to sending low-value emails at mass scale, and double-painful when an unbalanced flow (i.e. a spammer who receives no organic email coming in)

And, as we all know, charging money for a blue checkmark totally solved the bot problem on Twitter.

To whom is this "unfair"? A business has a legitimate interest in preventing customers from taking advantage of bulk discounts (committing to a long term of service in exchange for lower prices), and customers have a legitimate interest in opting to discontinue a service that is no longer needed. Where to draw that line does not seem cut and dry to me.

What is the specific nature of the "deception" -- what claim was made, and how is it not being honored?

Don't get me wrong -- I've been bit by this and I hate it and I think Lina Khan has done wonders for antitrust enforcement and I wish that she would take it even further, but the proper body to address this is Congress, through legislation rather than regulation.

You don't need to re-pay for the blue checkmark for everyone who reads your post.

The key insight here was making it expensive for spammers, but cheap for everyone else.

Paying in advance for a bulk subscription is not the same as an "auto renew", and I think you know that.

Right now signing up for Planet Fitness says "No Commitment". It is unfair AND deceptive to say no commitment but make it impossible to cancel.

The point I'm making is that is just a cost, so X is the money made from spam, and Y is how much it costs to send it, if X > Y, you're still getting spam. Companies pay MailChimp and every one in that whole ecosystem money. adding another cost is just adding another mouth to feed.

Yes. And the worst spam all meets the criteria of massive distributions of low-value email.

Consequently, where X < Y.

making it really hard to cancel your subscription is unfair, almost by definition

...which changes the economics of sending the spam email. Surely some of them will be "valuable" enough to send even with the added cost; however, a measure doesn't need to be 100% effective to be useful.

Unfortunately that is insignificant at the larger end too.

An accountant would just look at that, figure out the click-through rate and plug it in to weigh it up against the CPM/CTR of equivalent advertising.

And you'd lose any "ethical" arguments against spam. You'd unlock a tidal wave of companies who would now feel justified in spamming because they're paying to do so.

Just as companies don't feel ashamed to bleed adverts into every other waking space.