US court strikes down FTC ‘Click to Cancel’ rule

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An appellate court has halted a significant consumer-friendly guideline intended to simplify online subscription cancellations for U.S. citizens. This action undermines the Federal Trade Commission just as the new rule was about to be implemented.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit has overturned a rule made by the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) regarding easy subscription cancellation. This decision was made because the FTC didn’t follow the correct steps as required by law during the rule-making process. This means that a regulation, which would have allowed consumers to easily cancel subscriptions online with a simple click, will not be enforced for now.

As a passionate supporter, I’d rephrase it like this: In this specific case, the court decided that due to the FTC’s mistakes in following procedures, their rule about subscription practices, which could potentially be misleading, is no longer valid. The judges stated that because these procedural errors caused harm to us petitioners, it’s only fair to completely void the rule.

The U.S. Appeals Court has prevented the implementation of a rule that would have made it simpler for consumers to terminate their paid subscriptions with companies such as Netflix and Amazon.

— TopMob (@TopMob) July 9, 2025

California’s Law Still Stands

As a gamer hailing from the Golden State, I’m thrilled about the new change happening right when California’s Click-to-Cancel rule took effect on July 1st. This law is all about ensuring fairness in business dealings, making it just as simple for me to cancel my online subscriptions as it was to initially sign up. It’s a win-win situation, giving us gamers more control over our digital entertainment!

The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has been under increasing scrutiny regarding a marketing strategy known as “negative option marketing,” where consumers unknowingly get enrolled in continuous subscriptions and are billed unless they proactively cancel. In 2024, the FTC received an average of almost 70 complaints per day about these practices, marking a significant increase from approximately 42 daily complaints in 2021.

For several years now, the U.S. administration has been revising various Federal Trade Commission (FTC) regulations, one of which took effect in October 2024. This rule prohibits the practice of artificially inflating livestream views through viewbotting and falsifying social media follower counts within the country’s borders.

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2025-07-09 17:18