[HN Gopher] Cable companies ask 5th Circuit to block FTC's click...
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Cable companies ask 5th Circuit to block FTC's click-to-cancel rule
Author : LorenDB
Score : 189 points
Date : 2024-10-24 17:36 UTC (5 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (arstechnica.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (arstechnica.com)
| Suppafly wrote:
| oh no, those poor cable companies.
| mikeyouse wrote:
| Yikes.. of course they filed in the 5th Circuit too. Why pretend
| there's any consistent judiciary when you can just forum shop for
| the most reactionary Appeals court in recent history?
| edmundsauto wrote:
| I feel the ACLU or other legal action committee is going to
| have to DoS this circuit to prevent it. If you can't get on the
| docket for 10 years, it becomes less of an option.
| BolexNOLA wrote:
| I have nothing to add other than I am so tired of watching the
| 5th circuit just blatantly legislate from the bench (and in
| such a partisan way). It's basically a 2nd legislative arm at
| this point controlled by one political party.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _I am so tired of watching the 5th circuit just blatantly
| legislate from the bench (and in such a partisan way)_
|
| Folks have been similarly complaining about the Ninth for
| some time, which has its rulings reversed about as often as
| the Fifth's [1].
|
| [1] https://ballotpedia.org/SCOTUS_case_reversal_rates_(2007_
| -_P...
| falcolas wrote:
| Nuke 'em both then. Seriously. Partisan politics,
| regardless of the side they take, should not belong in the
| judiciary.
| ssl-3 wrote:
| Indeed.
|
| "But _both sides_ do it, " they say?
|
| No worries. There's no particular harm in destroying
| both.
| kiba wrote:
| We should have our judges confirmed by a randomly
| selected jury.
| camel_Snake wrote:
| This is a wonderful source - thank you for providing it.
| n8henrie wrote:
| Not knowing much about this and just going from your link
| (honestly I don't even know which side the 5th and 9th are
| on)... 5/10 and 8/10 are not all that close. 5/10 seems to
| give the 9th one of the lower rates of reversal, given that
| so many of them are 1/1.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _5 /10 and 8/10 are not all that close_
|
| That's only the recent term.
|
| Scroll down to the first vertical bar graph. Sixth is
| reversed over 80% of the time, Ninth right behind it.
| Fifth, Eighth and the State Courts comprise the second
| cohort in the 70-ish percent range. Note that these are
| conditional probabilities; we're observing cases SCOTUS
| took on.
| BolexNOLA wrote:
| This reads to me like cherry-picking. I don't know why we
| should just ignore the most recent trends in favor of
| older ones.
| s1artibartfast wrote:
| Because one single term departure from a mean isn't much
| of a trend. when you have a 17 year data set and a 1 year
| data set, I dont think it is very reasonable to limit
| examination to a single year unless there is a reason why
| that might be different. The most recent year is in the
| larger data set.
| BolexNOLA wrote:
| I'm not sure how the 9th possibly having issues somehow
| undermines the problems with the 5th. This is pretty
| textbook "whataboutism."
|
| I'm also not sure why reversals are the metric we are going
| off of here to decide if a court is partisan/legislating
| from the bench. You're asserting that as if it's self-
| evident.
| briandear wrote:
| And the 9th Circuit hasn't?
| BolexNOLA wrote:
| I'd be curious to see where you saw me say the 9th circuit
| hasn't also engaged in this behavior.
|
| When we talk about Google or Microsoft or whoever doing
| something shady/unwanted, do we have to list every other
| major company that also engages in bad behavior? Am I
| obligated to list every single appellate court with issues
| or am I allowed to focus on the one we are talking about
| right now?
| 23B1 wrote:
| Why pretend lawmakers are doing their job when you can just
| blame the courts?
|
| Chevron flew right past people's heads, didn't it.
| jfengel wrote:
| I don't think anybody is pretending that lawmakers are doing
| their jobs.
|
| That's why people keep looking to the courts. Congress can't
| even pass the most fundamental law -- appropriations to keep
| the government open -- in a timely manner. Everybody is well
| aware that Congress is incapable of passing any law more
| pertinent than renaming a post office.
|
| Unfortunately, that's the result of everybody's individual
| Congressperson doing exactly what they're sent to do. Which
| is: stop the opposing party's legislators from accomplishing
| anything.
| 23B1 wrote:
| > I don't think anybody is pretending that lawmakers are
| doing their jobs.
|
| Pick any mainstream rag and I will show you an op-ed that
| blames the courts. Pick any popular internet social and I
| will show you the same.
|
| I'm not saying the courts aren't activist or partisan mind
| you, but the problem starts with bad laws made by bad
| lawmakers.
| diggan wrote:
| > The lawsuits say the FTC order was "arbitrary, capricious, and
| an abuse of discretion within the meaning of the Administrative
| Procedure Act,"
|
| Anyone with knowledge who can expand this or explain what exactly
| is "arbitrary", "capricious" or "abuse of discretion"?
|
| As far as I can tell, the best argument the cable companies have
| is "a consumer may easily misunderstand the consequences of
| canceling and it may be imperative that they learn about better
| options" but that feels contrived at best. Anyone have any better
| arguments against the new FTC rule?
| m463 wrote:
| Can't they just make it harder to sign up, so they can make it
| harder to cancel?
|
| That way consumers will understand the consequences of signing
| up and cancelling.
| diggan wrote:
| > Can't they just make it harder to sign up, so they can make
| it harder to cancel?
|
| The obviously ideal case for the cable companies is "easy to
| signup - borderline impossible to cancel", as that'd lead to
| the highest short-term profits.
| exe34 wrote:
| that sounds like a gym membership.
| theGnuMe wrote:
| Gym memberships should also be click to cancel.
| exe34 wrote:
| where I live, I got lucky, the gym burned down.
|
| (I had nothing to do with it!)
| m463 wrote:
| Were you able to cancel your membership? :)
| azemetre wrote:
| My gym closed during the pandemic and sold their
| memberships to another gym then continued charging me.
| Luckily the owners of my "membership" were understanding
| and let me cancelled over the phone.
| hiatus wrote:
| They are saying FTC is engaging in law-making with this rule.
| diggan wrote:
| Wikipedia says the following about the FTC:
|
| > Additionally, the FTC has rulemaking power to address
| concerns regarding industry-wide practices. Rules promulgated
| under this authority are known as Trade Rules.
|
| But of course, that specific sentence is labeled "citation
| needed" so can't really dig deeper there. But taking it at
| face-value, isn't that one of the points of the FTC at least
| today, that they can setup these "Trade Rules"?
| ghayes wrote:
| The recent Loper decision also expressly says Congress
| _can_ delegate to agencies, just that APA doesn't do that
| delegation itself.
| brookst wrote:
| Eh, but there will always be some level of detail that
| was not delegated. That's the bad faith side of Loper. It
| essentially says that every detail of every instance must
| be expressly included in the legislation. Which just
| isn't possible.
| WillPostForFood wrote:
| Loper says nothing like that! I know that there were a
| lot of hot takes after the decision, but read it
| yourself. All Loper says is that when the law is
| ambiguous about agency powers, the courts get final say,
| they don't defer to the agency interpretation.
|
| https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/23pdf/22-451_7m58.p
| df
| elevatedastalt wrote:
| Yes, and with the recent overturning of the Chevron doctrine,
| that's going to be tougher to fly.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| Arbitrary-and-capricious and abuse of discretion are
| parallel deferences to and older precedents than Chevron.
| Junking Chevron doesn't junk them.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _are saying FTC is engaging in law-making with this rule_
|
| In part. They're also claiming the Commission didn't consider
| some material facts. (What they are is so far unstated.)
| NoMoreNicksLeft wrote:
| This is a disingenuous argument. I too think they're engaging
| in law-making, but if that were their concern then they have
| the influence, time, and specialized knowledge to convince
| Congress to make it a law. You know, so everything's proper.
|
| When the criminal says "hey, that's not fair, the legislature
| didn't make this thing illegal that should be illegal"...
| well, let's pass it as a law. Anyone not a criminal should be
| on board with that, including the complainants.
|
| Make no mistake. This is fraud by any sane standard, fraud of
| the criminal sort. These companies should be fined tens of
| billions of dollars, if not more. Those who cannot afford
| such fines (Planet Fitness, etc), should be bankrupted, their
| assets sold at auction, and their executives and directors
| prohibited from ever holding such jobs again. Make the
| shareholders of these companies destitute.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _Anyone not a criminal should be on board with that,
| including the complainants_
|
| There are plenty of reasons to oppose new laws and rules
| than your own guilt.
| NoMoreNicksLeft wrote:
| There are plenty of reasons to oppose new _arbitrary
| /irrelevant/random_ laws other than your own guilt.
|
| No reason to oppose such a one as I hinted at. Other than
| your own guilt.
| danielmarkbruce wrote:
| Here is one, and it will come up almost certainly.
|
| A service has all your source code. Click to cancel is
| super easy. Privacy laws mean that data must be destroyed
| almost instantly. You accidentally click and POOF all
| your stuff is gone. So... to avoid that the service
| implements something like github - now you have to enter
| details of the repo, maybe 2fa in because security, and
| so on. An overzealous Lina Khan type now comes after a
| service doing the right thing making it hard to shoot
| yourself in the foot.
|
| _every_ new rule has lots of cases like this. At any
| given point a good number of the agency heads are
| ambitious folks trying to build a career of note, not
| actually protect society.
| lyu07282 wrote:
| That's not why it's disingenuous, it's very simple: This
| will reduce their profits. Any additional analysis is
| superfluous.
|
| There is a good reason why Harris doesn't use the FTC
| (under Lina Kahn) to gain political capital. This is the
| sort of stuff that actually matters, so naturally barely
| anyone ever talks about it.
| danielmarkbruce wrote:
| An argument about what mechanism of law should be used, who
| has jurisdiction isn't disingenuous.
|
| A class action lawsuit could likely work. This doesn't need
| to be a rule per se. These companies are behaving poorly
| and it should cost them billions - but we don't need to
| create red tape every time this happens.
| fallingknife wrote:
| And let's face it, that's what they're doing. As much as I
| hate the cable companies, this weird governance structure
| where most of the legislation in the country is written by
| these extra-constitutional agencies is super sketchy. The
| government is not supposed to be able to make these massive
| changes to its own structure and separation of powers without
| the check of having to amend the constitution.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _who can expand this or explain what exactly is "arbitrary",
| "capricious" or "abuse of discretion"?_
|
| If you follow SCOTUS opinions, like half of them are about
| these words. That isn't an answer so much as an admission that
| the APA is one of the more jargon-heavy areas of law.
| Importantly, however: these standards are _not_ overturned by
| the junking of Chevron deterrence.
|
| Arbitrary-and-capricious focuses "on the process of decision-
| making rather than the outcome itself. Courts applying this
| standard do not substitute their judgment for that of the
| agency but instead examine whether the agency's decision-making
| process was rational and based on consideration of relevant
| factors" [1]. Courts will look at if the agency "relied on
| factors that Congress did not intend it to consider...failed to
| consider an important aspect of the problem," or "offered an
| explanation that runs counter to the evidence before the
| agency." So if an agency doesn't consider reasonable
| alternatives to its rule or doesn't provide evidence for each
| step in its thinking, its rule can be struck down [2].
|
| Note that these concepts trace from judicial standards, _i.e._
| appellate courts will overturn lower courts if they acted
| arbitrarily, capriciously or abused their discretion. If a
| lower court "does not apply the correct law or rests its
| decision on a clearly erroneous finding of a material
| fact....rules in an irrational manner" or "makes an error of
| law," its ruling can be overturned on the basis of abuse of
| discretion [3]. So if an agency facing a statute of limitations
| gets stonewalled by a defendant running out the clock, and a
| court dismisses (versus stays) the case on the basis of the
| statute of limitations having run out, that is abuse of
| discretion [4].
|
| [1] https://attorneys.media/arbitrary-capricious-legal-
| standard-...
|
| [2] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motor_Vehicles_Manufacturer
| s....
|
| [3]
| https://cdn.ca9.uscourts.gov/datastore/uploads/guides/stand_...
|
| [4] https://casetext.com/case/pension-ben-guar-v-carter-
| tillery-...
| bix6 wrote:
| After reading about this in BIG, my understanding is that they
| are leaving a breadcrumb trail so this can be challenged by
| conservative circuit judges on process grounds. Because why
| bother addressing the underlying issue when you can just throw
| everything out on process and hold society back.
|
| https://www.thebignewsletter.com/p/lina-khan-vs-planet-fitne...
| SideQuark wrote:
| The reason to require legal cases meeting process is what
| helps every day people not get railroaded by zealous police
| and prosecutors. Arguing to weaken this requirement would
| have far reaching bad consequences for society.
|
| And, if a judge does rule that this change did not follow the
| law, then no matter how much you like it, it's far better
| that legal requirements get met than to weaken them over
| something like this.
| bix6 wrote:
| I agree with you in principle but process has been abused
| to throw out way too many legitimate cases.
| bunderbunder wrote:
| "Arbitrary, capricious, and an abuse of discretion" is all
| more-or-less boilerplate legalese that was lifted straight out
| of the Administrative Procedure Act.
|
| It's a reference to a specific level of evidentiary standard
| that the Act prescribes. Basically, the APA is generally
| deferential to the agencies deciding how to implement
| regulations, so challengers have to demonstrate that the
| implementation in question represents an unreasonable abuse of
| power.
|
| What it really boils down to, though, is that they're
| complaining that the FTC didn't make a strong enough case that
| the burdens this rule imposes on service providers are
| proportional to the consumer protection benefit.
| danielmarkbruce wrote:
| Most of these cases are not more related to whether the FTC (or
| whatever agency in question) is/should be allowed to make the
| rule at all. It's not really about the rule itself. Obviously
| the specifics of the rule will play into that, but it's not
| usually about the merits of the rule itself.
|
| It's good that these cases happen. The agencies should be kept
| in check, they can't just make stuff up as they go. There is a
| reasonable position that some folks take - that the agencies
| were never intended to have such broad powers and have vastly
| overstepped their bounds.
| AStonesThrow wrote:
| Canceling Cable (Kieran Culkin on SNL)
| https://youtu.be/V5DeDLI8_IM?si=-O1bWCTrdLGK6gCH
| teeray wrote:
| Nevermind that if this were put to some kind of national popular
| vote it would pass overwhelmingly.
| dctoedt wrote:
| > _Nevermind that if this were put to some kind of national
| popular vote it would pass overwhelmingly._
|
| But it's typical of big industry groups to try to block any
| kind of regulatory- or legislative action that inhibits them
| from doing what they want.
| WillPostForFood wrote:
| It is also typical of big industry groups to support tons of
| regulation, because only big industry can afford to comply,
| and it keeps competition out.
| Sakos wrote:
| I feel like that's too over-confident. They'll just do what
| corporations have been doing for decades. Invest in PR that
| paints this as protecting the American way and American values,
| and all the other nonsense corporations will use to convince
| voters to vote against their best interests.
| johnnyanmac wrote:
| maybe I'm unusually optimistic, but I feel struggling with a
| BS subscription is a fairly bipartisan and universal
| experience here. It's not quite like how you can sell to the
| affluent how they deserve more and there are leechers taking
| from society. The leeches are the subscription companies.
| kelnos wrote:
| Given that half the country loves the party that is anti-
| regulation, "small" government, I don't think you have your
| finger on the pulse of the nation, so to speak.
|
| Not only would many people in the US be against this on
| principle ("the feds should stop meddling", "the free market
| will sort it out"), but the companies in question would invest
| lots of money into propaganda that many, many people would fall
| for.
| briandear wrote:
| I am a small government advocate. The problem with cable
| companies is that they enjoy near monopoly status. That's not
| free market.
| idle_zealot wrote:
| My interpretation is that most people supporting that party
| may have bought into deregulation rhetoric, but would vote
| for any specific regulation that curbs a behavior they
| personally dislike unless a more stout believer talked them
| out of it.
| hn_version_0023 wrote:
| The people you're referring to, aka Republican voters, are
| mainly being led around by the nose. To be more specific,
| it's my view that they view politics as a team sport and as
| entertainment and don't think through their positions.
|
| These people would be against maintaining their own lives if
| the Dems were for it.
| sitkack wrote:
| I know a couple democrats that wear seatbelts, wash their
| hands and take the flu vaccine.
| kulahan wrote:
| The people he's referring to are probably best described as
| libertarian. "Republican" has been abused so much as a word
| (Democrat, too) that it's effectively useless to describe
| _anything_ these days anyways.
|
| Case in point: you're using it here to describe people who
| are not particularly wise to propaganda, which has nothing
| to do with the word at all. You're _probably_ referring to
| social conservatives, but it 's always hard to tell if
| comments like these are meant to be a strawman on purpose
| or not.
| dfxm12 wrote:
| When you hear about situations like this, where something
| useful and popular nation-wide gets shut down under the guise
| of deregulation, the tenth amendment, states' rights, etc.,
| it's _never_ about self determination. It 's about this,
| letting people with lifetime appointments decide the law of the
| land.
|
| It goes from big issues, like cannabis, reproductive rights,
| gun control, all the way down to common sense consumer
| protections like this. That's why I'm weary about about
| politicians who thump "states' rights" & "self determination",
| but never seem to put forward any big ticket ballot
| propositions.
| mlindner wrote:
| In general the courts shouldn't be pushing big ticket ballot
| propositions... That isn't their place. The reason they're
| not elected is explicitly so they can't be (to the maximum
| extent possible) affected by the ballot box.
|
| A lot of people seem to forget but the maximum amount of
| democracy isn't the best. Mob rule is not a good system of
| government.
| BolexNOLA wrote:
| "Mob rule" is often just this hand wavy argument a party
| invokes when it wants to force its unpopular positions on
| the rest of the country or, in the GOP's case, to defend
| the electoral college which gives them disproportionate
| political power.
|
| When did Mitch McConnell say "the American people should
| decide," aka the "mob"? When he wanted to block a SCOTUS
| appointment for almost a year. Suddenly the mob was wrong
| when the shoe was on the other foot and the window of time
| was barely over a month.
|
| Good faith "mob rule" arguments are rare. It's mostly just
| an easy appeal to shut down otherwise valid arguments.
| rodgerd wrote:
| Put it to a nationwide vote and you'll watch the money flow
| into the ad campaigns and half your friends will start telling
| you how important it is to smash the "regulatory shadow state"
| and "unelected bureaucrats" or whatever the talking points are.
| dylan604 wrote:
| I like this as a possible honey trap. Any company/industry that
| signs up to fight this is pretty much a self own admission they
| behave this way.
|
| Not one person fighting this is a surprise
| echoangle wrote:
| What is there to expose? Basically every company would probably
| like that, if a company doesn't sign up, it's not because they
| are too moral but because they think the public perception of
| them will take a hit.
| dylan604 wrote:
| Who knows what evidence will finally get someone to get off
| the fence, so the more evidence of whatever type and
| especially own goals like this are welcome
| marcosdumay wrote:
| If a company doesn't do that, or does but wants to stop, it
| will be in favor of the regulation and against that suit.
|
| That is for whatever reason they have for not wanting to do
| it. Except, maybe for not doing it for publicity reasons and
| exploiting that fact with a large campaign.
| xp84 wrote:
| > Basically every company would probably like that
|
| No, only the ones who suck. I don't mean this in a jokey way.
| If I'm UpstartISP, Inc. and I believe that my product is
| actually better than Comcast offers, I _want_ people to be
| able to cancel services without being jerked around, waiting
| on hold, and hassled, so that they can sign up with me.
|
| It's only companies that know they suck, and that their whole
| business is full of scams and deception, that want this. Yes,
| that's entire major industries, such as the "home security"
| lobbying group and cablecos mentioned in the article. As well
| as gym memberships.
| ryandrake wrote:
| > No, only the ones who suck. I don't mean this in a jokey
| way. If I'm UpstartISP, Inc. and I believe that my product
| is actually better than Comcast offers, I want people to be
| able to cancel services without being jerked around,
| waiting on hold, and hassled, so that they can sign up with
| me.
|
| Sooner or later, some SeniorLeader inside UpstartISP, whose
| bonus is driven by profit or loss, will do the math and
| note that making it harder to cancel will cause quarterly
| profits to increase by 0.N%, and then the company will
| surely make the change. The tendency for all companies to
| profit-maximize guarantees it.
| xp84 wrote:
| I think I basically agree with you on that part. I'd
| propose an axiom: "All companies tend over time toward
| increasing levels of cynical rent-seeking behavior in
| place of innovation or competition."
|
| Which is why they should be restricted from engaging in
| any easily-definable instances of that behavior (ideally
| by actual legislation instead of this silly executive
| branch stuff).
|
| Banning the mature, craven companies from building moats
| of anticompetitive, anti-consumer behavior is a way to
| help the next generation of new entrants to either kill
| them or to force them to compete, either of which is a
| win for consumers and better startups trying to dethrone
| them.
| JoshTriplett wrote:
| > Sooner or later, some SeniorLeader inside UpstartISP,
| whose bonus is driven by profit or loss, will do the math
| and note that making it harder to cancel will cause
| quarterly profits to increase by 0.N%,
|
| Companies need people empowered to say "that will
| probably increase _short-term_ profits, and damage our
| reputation in the long term, so no, we 're not doing it;
| we're in this for the long haul".
| sitkack wrote:
| I am more likely to sign up for something I can cancel.
| Also, if I can trial it and it doesn't work, I can leave.
| If it sucks and I can't leave I am going to be horribly
| pissed.
|
| A _really_ good example is
| https://www.verizon.com/plans/free-trial/ I was testing
| between verizon and mint for my physical location. For
| whatever reason, VZ was underperforming, so when the trial
| expired, I left a happy temporary customer. I have since
| recommended it to others, knowing that they aren't going to
| get locked in.
|
| Being able to cancel actually make more happy customers,
| not less. It is only the enshitified mba run companies that
| trap customers that exhibit the parasitic practice of
| trapping customers into long contracts, confusing bills and
| impossible to cancel w/o burning your payment account
| number.
|
| I actually _would_ sign up for the local gym that just went
| under in my neighborhood, but I knew I would never be able
| to cancel, so I skipped it.
| photonthug wrote:
| Verizon has a different strategy for this type of thing
| but is still in the 'enshitified mba-run companies'
| category. Charge like $400 for a 5g internet device
| that's worth like $12 and built on OSS anyway (+ probably
| charge it again if the device isn't returned). Device
| only has only a power-button and is designed to be
| preconfigured, but isn't, so that they can make the
| customer call and navigate 6+ hours of tech support. This
| is so frustrating that it might easily take a month to do
| it if you want to keep your sanity.. which means they can
| bill an extra month providing no service at all, and if
| you were counting on a trial period it's probably over.
| The trial cancelation might be easy, but really, that
| matters most when there's actually significant
| competition among providers. In the end it's service
| that's easily twice as expensive and half as good as what
| most of the civilized world enjoys.
|
| There's what, like 10k hours in a year, half a million
| hours in a lifetime? So rather than "make it easy to
| cancel" laws what we really need is some general
| recognition of the fact that deliberately stealing 1 hour
| of time from half a million people is roughly equivalent
| to murdering 1 person. Everyone knows that class actions
| for a $2 dollar check are a joke. If your business is
| practically essential so that you're basically guaranteed
| customers, and your business practices deliberately add
| friction that cost people time+money, then you're guilty
| of violence as well as theft.
| sitkack wrote:
| > general recognition of the fact that deliberately
| stealing 1 hour of time from half a million people is
| roughly equivalent to murdering 1 person.
|
| Agreed!
| Terr_ wrote:
| I fear you overestimate the degree to which the market actually
| punishes companies that do Bad Things.
| ChrisArchitect wrote:
| Related:
|
| _FTC announces "click-to-cancel" rule making it easier to cancel
| subscriptions_
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41858665
| lofaszvanitt wrote:
| Way back... I think it was the WSJ or Wired, can't remember,
| where I couldn't change/delete my card details - except one field
| - once I had subscribed. So the only way to cancel the recurring
| subscription was to change the cvv code.
| boomboomsubban wrote:
| It's not like I have much sympathy for cable companies, but I can
| somewhat see their point here. Canceling your cable involves real
| costs, someone has to come to your home and disconnect it. Then
| if they quickly regret the decision, they'll be charged a not
| insignificant fee to be hooked up again.
|
| That said, the cable companies could still work around this. The
| rules seems to still allow "saves," which could include them
| contacting you the next day to try and reverse your decision.
|
| The save portion of the rule seems to be a loophole the
| telecommunications companies convinced the FTC to add for them,
| it sounded like originally those would be blocked.
| gurchik wrote:
| I have never used a cable provider that required a visit to
| connect or disconnect service - it has always been done
| remotely.
| boomboomsubban wrote:
| I have never had cable activated without a technician coming.
| I live in a more rural area, but I've also heard other people
| discuss "the cable guy is scheduled to arrive sometime
| between 8AM and 4PM."
|
| I think cable boxes change it somewhat, but the last time I
| had cable and not just cable internet they still had someone
| come to hook the cable box up. Admittedly, that was fifteen
| years ago now.
| brigade wrote:
| There has been zero reason to physically disconnect the
| hookup since analog cable was phased out 15 years ago.
|
| It can still be cheaper to send a guy out on service start
| to ensure the existing hookup is of sufficient quality
| (hasn't degraded or been chewed or cut by the last owner)
| and the new customer isn't trying to hook it into their
| aerial or old satellite dish or something. Or if your
| records are spotty and aren't certain there's an existing
| hookup.
| boomboomsubban wrote:
| You're right that they probably don't disconnect it.
| Honestly, I've never considered what happens when it's
| disconnected, as it's always been when I move out of a
| place.
|
| Needing somebody to show up to connect it made me assume
| someone disconnected it, but a status check makes more
| sense.
| kelnos wrote:
| > _the last time I had cable and not just cable internet
| they still had someone come to hook the cable box up.
| Admittedly, that was fifteen years ago now._
|
| 15 years is lifetimes when it comes to technology
| capabilities. They world has moved on from that.
|
| I've had techs "need" to come out for cable internet
| connection setup, but all they did was the exact same thing
| I would do myself: connect the coax, plug in the modem, and
| call a number to say "here's the MAC address, it's plugged
| in". It's such a waste of time (mine and theirs) and money
| (depends on if they're jackholes who charge a connection
| fee or if they eat the cost themselves).
|
| Meanwhile, another cable company I subscribed to last year
| for internet service just mailed me a kit, with QR codes
| that handled activation. It didn't work right the first
| time, and there was a number to call; they realized the
| problem was on their end and fixed it quickly.
| naim08 wrote:
| not sure if you have cable. Its all remotely done
| tombert wrote:
| I forgot to pay my Time Warner Cable bill once. It got
| disconnected remotely. I paid it and it was re-activated in a
| few hours.
|
| As far as I'm aware, no humans other than me were really
| involved with this.
| terminalbraid wrote:
| The thing they are predominantly fighting is not "I don't want
| cable anymore". It's not likely anyone who wants to terminate
| the service permanently is unwilling to spend the time to
| cancel given the cost of sitting on it.
|
| It's being able to trivially downgrade service packages the
| same way you can upgrade them. That does not involve a major
| cost like a technician visit.
| johnnyanmac wrote:
| I don't sympathize because I remember cable being both 1) long
| term (yearly) contracts instead of monthly and 2) if you cancel
| early you still have a termination fee. Those should make up
| for the need to come to your house to deactivate services.
| kelnos wrote:
| These days, if they need to physically come out to
| disconnect/reconnect, that's their problem. Mechanisms exist so
| they can do this remotely; if they're not set up to do that in
| 2024, they can eat the costs.
|
| Also... who cares? If there's regret and then the customer gets
| charged a reconnect fee, that's life. People need to learn that
| making decisions without thinking them through can have
| consequences.
| xp84 wrote:
| "onerous new regulatory obligations regarding disclosures, how
| those disclosures are communicated, a "separate" consent
| requirement, regulations of truthful company representative
| communications with customers, and prescriptive mandates for
| service cancellation, among others."
|
| Translation: "WTF, how dare you suggest that we have to stop
| deceiving and ripping off our customers? We aren't prepared to do
| business honestly! This is an outrage!"
|
| Note: California has this same type of law scheduled to go into
| effect in July. Can't wait!
| happyopossum wrote:
| > same type of law scheduled to go into effect in July
|
| As near as I can tell, that's the real rub here - this is _not_
| a law,, nor was it directly enacted by legislation. It 's a
| regulation written independent of lawmakers, and the question
| is whether the FTC has the authority to write this specific set
| of regulations.
|
| I'm hoping the cable companies lose but we should be aware of
| the consequences of allowing uncheck regulatory rule making
| outside the scope of congress.
| xp84 wrote:
| You're absolutely right on that point. I am so frustrated at
| the massive vacuum left by our worthless federal legislative
| branch. It seems like "both sides" of the political aisle are
| feeling the same: Executive branch attempts to do something
| in an arguably commonsense way to solve a real problem, the
| guilty parties who caused the problem run to the courts for
| relief (usually on the grounds of lacking clear authority
| from Congress), courts agree and (often very explicitly)
| encourage Congress to pass a law if they think this authority
| ought to exist, and Congress resumes furiously fundraising
| and meeting with their donors.
|
| Edit: I know in general it's the left who "likes to regulate
| things" but a relevant example on the right would include
| regulating things like immigration.
| Terr_ wrote:
| > I am so frustrated at the massive vacuum left by our
| worthless federal legislative branch.
|
| IMO that problem can be traced back to issues like:
|
| 1. The Permanent Apportionment Act of 1929 which prevented
| adding more Representatives as population grew.
|
| 2. The game-theoretic outcomes of continuing to use
| plurality/first-past-the-post voting.
|
| 3. How most officeholders end up spending most of their
| time raising money for re-election rather than the job
| itself.
| SideQuark wrote:
| Congress gave the FTC power to enact rules so that Congress
| doesn't have to fiddle with every single little complaint or
| item over all of society. What do you think FTC stands for?
|
| Here's the Congressional passed statutes regarding the FTC
| [1].
|
| In particular note that 15 U.S.C 41-58 includes that the FTC
| "is empowered... to .. prescribe rules defining with
| specificity acts or practices that are unfair or deceptive,
| and establishing requirements designed to prevent such acts
| or practices" among many other similar things.
|
| The phrase "unfair or deceptive" occurs 56 times in the FTC
| charter. Go read it.
|
| [1] https://www.ftc.gov/legal-library/browse/statutes
| fallingknife wrote:
| Well what is the actual law here? What made this fair for
| decades, according to the law, and suddenly unfair and
| deceptive today even though there has been no actual change
| to the law? (I would argue that it was unfair and deceptive
| all along, but that's not what the law said). Laws were
| meant to be something more permanent and reliable than
| something which can just be changed on the whim of some
| bureaucrat.
| LadyCailin wrote:
| > Cable companies worry rule will make it hard to talk customers
| out of canceling.
|
| That's literally the fucking point.
| JoshTriplett wrote:
| Yup.
|
| I'd love to have a convenient way to transfer a phonecall to a
| message playing on loop, continuously without gaps for the
| other end to respond. e.g. "take me off your spam list
| immediately".
| jmyeet wrote:
| Quick primer on how the courts have been successfully weaponized
| here.
|
| The Federal court system is divided into circuits [1]. Circuits
| are further divided into districts (eg Eastern District of
| Texas). In sparsely populated, large areas there districts may be
| further subdivided into divisions. The idea is you shouldn't need
| to drive 6 hours to get to a Federal judge.
|
| Each district has an Appeals Court that sits above the District
| Court so that's what "Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals" means.
| Above all the circuit appeals courts sits the Supreme Court.
| Additionally, each circuit has a single Supreme Court judge who
| is available to hear emergency motions from appeals court
| rulings. That judge can rule on the motion or refer the matter to
| the entire Supreme Court.
|
| Judges reflect the politics of the state they're in because of
| the blue slip system [2]. Presidents nominate judges to Federal
| courts. A Senator from that judge's state by tradition (ie
| there's no law for this) essentially can veto that nomination.
|
| Federal district court judges have the power to make rulings and
| issue injunctions that affect the entire country.
|
| So in Texas we have a perfect storm for judge shopping and a
| forum to push conservative views through lawsuits. Texas is a
| large state so the districts are divided into divisions. A
| division might only have 1-2 Federal district court judges. So if
| you nominally establish a business in Amarillo, TX you know with
| a high degree of certainty what judge you'll get when you file a
| lawsuit. With certain questionable tactics, you can know pretty
| much 100% what judge you "randomly" get assigned.
|
| This is called "judge shopping".
|
| It's why all the patent cases are litigated in the Eastern
| District of Texas. It's why any anti-abortion lawsuit always ends
| up in front of Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk [3] in the Northern
| District of Texas (eg [4]).
|
| So the Fifth Circuit is conservative because Texas, Alabama and
| Louisiana are conservative. Conservative judges are usually
| viewed as more friendly to lawsuits attacking any sort of
| government regulation. Even if the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals
| doesn't rule in favor of the cable companies, the matter will go
| straight to the Supreme Court. This current Supreme Court has
| shown themselves highly likely to take up the case and intervene,
| probably in favor of cable companies.
|
| [1]:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_federal_judicial...
|
| [2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue_slip_(U.S._Senate)
|
| [3]: https://www.txnd.uscourts.gov/judge/judge-matthew-kacsmaryk
|
| [4]: https://www.npr.org/2023/04/07/1159220452/abortion-pill-
| drug...
| roshin wrote:
| That's because the US wasn't designed to have unelected federal
| bureaucrats create laws for the entire country. Every state
| should make their own laws, and then those state's courts could
| determine if the law is legal or not.
| jmyeet wrote:
| That's ahistorical. The Federal court system was established
| by the Judiciary Act of 1789 [1], the same year the
| constitution came into force (which established the Supreme
| Court).
|
| Whenever people bring up "states rights" with objectively
| false claims, one needs to consider the history of such a
| claim. It was most prominent in the Secession Crisis and the
| obvious follow up question is "states rights to do what?"
| because the answer is "to own people as property".
|
| Google is free.
|
| [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federal_judiciary_of_the_U
| nite...
| sitkack wrote:
| They can't because those same corporate and conservative
| players will use the Commerce Clause to prevent any
| meaningful legislation at the state level. You get to choose
| the color of the billy club of submission but not how it is
| held or its target.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commerce_Clause
|
| https://constitutioncenter.org/the-
| constitution/articles/art...
|
| Your ideology is leaking.
| JoshTriplett wrote:
| Exactly. The standard playbook is to attack attempts to do
| this at the federal level by arguing it's a state decision,
| and attack attempts to do this at the state level using the
| excessively broadened Commerce Clause.
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wickard_v._Filburn was a
| horrible overreaching mistake, as was every other expansion
| of the Commerce Clause.
|
| (There are different playbooks for passing laws that
| curtail personal rights, by arguing to do it at _both_ the
| state and federal level, or removing federal prohibitions
| on something and then enacting it on a state by state basis
| while trying to pass the reverse at the federal level.)
| elevatedastalt wrote:
| The Commerce Clause serves no master. It can be used for
| federal overreach in either direction. For eg. without the
| a lot of regulatory behavior that the Congress does today
| is by relying on the Commerce Clause.
| rodgerd wrote:
| Was the US designed to have a couple of judges in Texas
| determine the law for the whole country?
| SideQuark wrote:
| > That's because the US wasn't designed
|
| Yes, it was. The Founding Fathers created this system.
|
| Simply use google instead of making up claims.
| andrewla wrote:
| It's hard to see the steelman case for this. The transcript of
| their objections at the initial hearing are on page 13 of the
| transcript [1]
|
| > The FTC's highly prescriptive proposal requiring numerous
| disclosures, multiple consents and specific cancellation
| mechanisms is a particularly poor fit for our industry. Our
| members offer services in a variety of custom bundles. They're
| provided over a wide range of devices and platforms. Consumers,
| for example, frequently subscribe to a triple play bundle that
| includes cable, broadband and voice services. They may face
| difficulty and unintended consequences if they want to cancel
| only one service in the package.
|
| > The proposed simple click-to-cancel mechanism may not be so
| simple when such practices are involved. A consumer may easily
| misunderstand the consequences of canceling and it may be
| imperative that they learn about better options. For example,
| canceling part of a discounted bundle may increase the price for
| remaining services. When canceling phone service, a consumer
| needs to understand they will lose 9-1-1 or lifeline services as
| well. Especially important, low-income consumers could be
| deprived of lower-cost plans and special government programs that
| would allow their families to keep broadband service.
|
| I mean, except for the 9-1-1 point, I guess I feel like all of
| those policies -- the bundling in particular -- should ALSO be
| disallowed.
|
| [1] https://www.ftc.gov/system/files/ftc_gov/pdf/ftc-negative-
| op...
| filereaper wrote:
| Not so sure about the 9-1-1 point.
|
| >"All wireless phones, even those that are not subscribed to or
| supported by a specific carrier, can call 911. However, calls
| to 911 on phones without active service do not deliver the
| caller's location to the 911 call center, and the call center
| cannot call these phones back to find out the caller's location
| or the nature of the emergency. If disconnected, the 911 center
| has no way to call back the caller."
|
| Source: https://www.911.gov/calling-911/frequently-asked-
| questions/
|
| Seems they're deliberately distorting their responsibilities.
| kelnos wrote:
| That sounds like something to fix, then.
|
| Requiring carriers to enable whatever side-channel is
| necessary to transmit location info to the 911 PSAP shouldn't
| be a heavy lift.
|
| The callback issue seems harder to resolve, but even if a
| handset has no assigned phone number, there are other ways to
| address it (e.g. IMEI). Carriers should be required to build
| in a capability to make this work.
| kelnos wrote:
| The one exception to frictionless cancellation could be a big
| modal warning the customer that cancelling will hamper their
| 911 service, if what they're doing will actually do so.
|
| These are spurious objections. They're grasping.
| Workaccount2 wrote:
| Ironically you can counter all these arguments almost perfectly
| with the inverse:
|
| "Customers may not know what they are signing up for or may
| only want to sign up for one service rather than the bundle"
|
| But of course, they only feel the canceling part would be bad,
| not the signing up part (which is also ridden with dark
| patterns and deception to fool customers).
| Terr_ wrote:
| Exactly, if anything the risks to the consumer of entering
| into a new contract-for-a-service are _overwhelmingly_
| greater than the risks of canceling the same. (Especially for
| a Disney+ account :P [0] )
|
| [0] https://www.axios.com/2024/08/21/disney-plus-court-case-
| arbi...
| elevatedastalt wrote:
| [Note: This will not be an anti-Cable-company screed]
|
| The American legislative system is bizarre.
|
| To begin with, Congress is accorded very little power by the
| constitution, with most of it resting with "We the people" or the
| states.
|
| This however, doesn't pattern match with the amount of power some
| people (typically progressives) _think_ the Congress or
| government _ought_ to have, or the amount of power Congress
| _wants_ to have (as much as possible), so we see BS things like
| the abuse of the Commerce Clause loophole to justify any
| Congressional intervention.
|
| Now, you'd think that with all this power that they have
| loopholed their way into, they would actually exercise it, but
| that doesn't actually happen, because they are permanently
| gridlocked and can't pass any damn shit unless it's part of a
| giant 1000-page omnibus bill that has 100 unrelated things
| clubbed together based on whatever horse-trading they manage to
| do one day before the govt shutdown deadline.
|
| So what actually happens is that the actual rule-making is done
| by the executive, in the form of these government agencies, which
| ideally should be enforcing things that the Congress has passed,
| but effectively are given pseudo-legal power through a variety of
| judicial interpretations (eg. the Chevron Doctrine) that can be
| overturned by the next Supreme Court as trivially as they were
| written in.
|
| All in all, you get a massively dysfunctional system where
| regulatory agencies act as effectively unelected lawmakers, with
| the actual lawmakers doing jackshit, and the judiciary
| effectively supporting these shenanigans through capricious
| rulings.
|
| And while doing all this, lawmakers can conveniently ramp on the
| rhetoric during campaigning because they know they don't actually
| need to do anything. They didn't even pass abortion-related
| legislation for 50 whole years, because they could use that
| division to reap votes every election cycle.
| focusedone wrote:
| That's a fairly accurate assessment of how the whole thing
| works. Grand, ain't it?
| jancsika wrote:
| > Congress is accorded very little power by the constitution,
| with most of it resting with "We the people" or the states.
|
| It's a brilliant way to specify powers to a legislative body,
| essentially a nation-state equivalent of Linux's "don't break
| userspace" directive. In both cases objections can bubble up
| from the bottom to the top, with courts being the equivalent of
| a mailing list post, "Hey, this new code breaks my use case!
| Fucking change it back!"
|
| In both cases one could argue about the implementation matching
| the aspirations of the concept. But to find the basic concept
| itself "bizarre" is to signal to the world that you don't
| understand one of the basic tenants of the constitution.
| elevatedastalt wrote:
| We are talking past each other. First off, I am describing
| the whole scenario as bizarre, not the first sentence of my
| post. That much should be obvious.
|
| Second, I _do_ understand the basic tenets (not tenants, btw)
| of the constitution, that's why I was able to describe them
| in my comment.
|
| What I am trying to point out is that the Constitution as
| written is at odds with what a lot of people want (eg.
| progressives want a more authoritative state, with vaccine
| mandates as an example), and since they can't change the
| constitution easily, we have developed a complex web of
| quasi-legal systems in order to loophole our way around the
| constitution.
|
| The judiciary and legislature are complicit in this.
|
| The Commerce Clause has been expanded to basically include
| everything under the Sun (something that should be bothering
| you if you understand the basic tenets and the spirit of the
| constitution), which means there is very little left that the
| Congress cannot legislate on. However, the Congress then
| actually legislates on very little, sticking itself in
| permanent gridlock, and actual policy effectively being
| created ex-nihilo by federal agencies, which should ideally
| have only been enforcing them.
|
| This was done with the agreement of the courts, but remember
| they can as easily choose to disagree tomorrow.
| advisedwang wrote:
| > Congress is accorded very little power by the constitution
|
| Congress doesn't have universal power, but the power it is
| explicitly listed is actually a lot broader than you make it
| sound. Some particularly powerful grants of power include:
|
| 1. commerce clause gives power to "regulate commerce...among
| the several states". As always the wording is vague, but it can
| reasonably be interpreted to be VERY broad. And it generally
| has been interpreted broadly. Why does the government have the
| power to criminalize drugs? Because there's an interestate
| market for drugs, basically. If you can criminalize possesion
| of a substance under the commerce clause, you can sure as shit
| regulate shady subscription practices by national chains.
|
| 2. The 13th, 14th and 15th amendments guarantee a bunch of
| rights and then grants congress power generic enforcement
| power. Enforcing such powerful and varied rights can reach into
| a lot of things.
|
| 3. Congress can raise and then spend money however it wants. So
| unless it violates a right, congress can basically empower the
| executive to do ANYTHING that money can buy.
|
| 4. The necessary and proper clause gives power to "make all
| Laws which shall be necessary and proper for carrying into
| Execution the foregoing Powers, and all other Powers vested by
| this Constitution". This really encourages broad reading of the
| explicitly listed powers and is used to justify congressional
| oversight, applying federal law to all kinds of random
| situation.
|
| Moreover when it comes to the agency power, they effectively
| have the COMBINED power of the executive (which they are part
| of) and whatever powers the legislature has given them.
| SideQuark wrote:
| > Congress is accorded very little power by the constitution
|
| No law can be made without them. They have tremendous power.
|
| > So what actually happens is that the actual rule-making is
| done by the executive, in the form of these government agencies
|
| The FTC was literally created by an act of Congress, which
| explicitly gave them the power to enact rules like this. See my
| other comment on this page where I like the laws.
|
| Do people simply hear whatever their favorite politics pundit
| spews and take that at face value? It's so easy to simply look
| google such things.
| gigatexal wrote:
| If you needed any more evidence that these companies would rather
| extract value than provide it ...
|
| If the FTC got nothing done but this and it stood up in court
| it'd be a huge win for society.
|
| I remember the relentless and annoying and capricious and arcane
| process I had to go through to cancel Comcast for my elderly
| mother.
|
| Gyms do this, too! Super easy to sign up almost impossible to
| cancel.
| cinntaile wrote:
| It should be as easy to cancel as it is to sign up.
| m463 wrote:
| I had a gym membership - when I moved, I had to send a
| certified letter to their corporate office to cancel.
| rubyfan wrote:
| Lunk alert!
| ChumpGPT wrote:
| Always use a virtual CC to pay for these types of services. You
| will also want to make sure you never give anyone access to
| direct withdrawal from your Bank Accounts. No auto payments
| either.
|
| When you want to cancel, tell them you are moving to Canada and
| have to cancel. they stop trying to sell you on keeping the
| service. Settle up and cancel your Virtual CC.
| javajosh wrote:
| Practical advice. But we need to address the underlying
| problem. I mean, if people were getting mugged 50% of the
| time, it would be practical to take hand combat lessons. But
| in that case, too, you'd want to address the underlying cause
| most of all.
| IncreasePosts wrote:
| You're on the hook for charges regardless of whether they
| successfully charge your CC.
| javajosh wrote:
| Interestingly, I don't think a court would look kindly on
| intentionally obfuscated or difficult cancellation
| procedures imposed on a contract unilaterally. And I don't
| think the cost/benefit ratio favors a firm taking someone
| to court on this. (Collections may be an option for them,
| and I'm not sure how you challenge the validity of a charge
| or who decides.)
| wildrhythms wrote:
| They don't have to take you to court at all, they will
| just send your bills to collections and nuke your credit
| score.
| oneplane wrote:
| That doesn't fix the issue, just tries to bypass the symptoms
| (and you're still on the hook, a CC isn't some magic "get out
| of a contract" card; even if the other party just gives up
| trying to collect).
| spl757 wrote:
| Won't somebody please think of the shareholders?
| jmull wrote:
| I recently canceled T-mobile home internet.
|
| Cancelling the service was easy.
|
| Cancelling the recurring payments has turned out to be an
| entirely different matter.
| jauntywundrkind wrote:
| The 5th Circuit has a bunch of ultra radical appointees, who
| among other things ordered ACA to be eliminated.
|
| ExTwitter's new ToS require cases to be held in their
| jurisdiction, in Northern Texas, which has particularly wild
| people.
|
| This is absurd court shopping/forum shopping & this court is
| slated to unmake a huge huge huge part of the USA. The Supreme
| Court has chastised them numberous times, but they are going to
| undo so so much.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Court_of_Appeals...
| mlindner wrote:
| Worth mentioning that companies like Starlink make it trivial to
| cancel service.
| Lasher wrote:
| Anyone who has ever tried to cancel Sirius-XM knows how
| desperately we need this law.
| howard941 wrote:
| They fixed it. It was easy as pie 3 months ago.
| whoopdedo wrote:
| If you want to lock customers into a contract then call it a
| contract. Every subscription plan very ominously states "this is
| not a contract" so the company has no obligation to provide the
| promised level of service and can change the plan at any time.
| Yet here they are arguing that customers don't have the right to
| terminate a subscription. That's called a contract and you can't
| have it both ways.
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