[HN Gopher] Pa. House passes 'click-to-cancel' subscription bills
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Pa. House passes 'click-to-cancel' subscription bills
Author : bikenaga
Score : 187 points
Date : 2025-07-11 16:19 UTC (6 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.pennlive.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.pennlive.com)
| toomuchtodo wrote:
| With the recent federal block of click to cancel, states
| implementing this will be the way to go.
|
| > Both bills passed the House with broad bipartisan support. If
| the legislation is agreed to by the state Senate and signed by
| Gov Josh Shapiro, Pennsylvania would join several other states
| that have moved to create such laws over the past year since the
| FTC began working on its now-defunct rule.
|
| > New York, California, Minnesota, Tennessee, and Virginia have
| all enacted state-level policies that include provisions similar
| to Ciresi and Borowski's bills.
|
| If you live in a state that has not passed such legislation, I
| would encourage you to hound your reps until they do. 45 states
| to go.
| swesour wrote:
| > Tennessee
|
| Rare red state w.
| ProllyInfamous wrote:
| I live here. We actually have fairly decent consumer
| protections... at least against product misrepresenation.
|
| For example, our state constitution prohibits products being
| sold in containers which misrepresent the amount of their
| contents (albeit, it still happens).
|
| Conversely, we also founded the pay-day-loan industry, which
| is just disgraceful (about a dozen states have banned
| entirely). Only passed because Allan Jones ("father of payday
| loans") donated $30,000 to PACs in the mid-90s.
|
| I'm currently looking for greener pastures, up-to-and-
| including expatriation. This state overall has politicians'
| heads so far up their own...
| toomuchtodo wrote:
| > I'm currently looking for greener pastures, up-to-and-
| including expatriation.
|
| https://hiring.cafe/ might be of help, no affiliation, just
| want to help everyone who wants out get out. Same with
| https://old.reddit.com/r/AmerExit/ on the expat front.
| amendegree wrote:
| Just to be clear the block was due to a procedural issue and I
| wouldn't at all be surprised to see this sorta thing have
| bipartisan support at the federal level, seeing as it enjoys
| bipartisan support at the state level in every jurisdiction it
| is attempted. The main hurdle at the federal level would be
| getting it out of committee.
| sokoloff wrote:
| FTC can still do it without the legislature. They just have
| to follow a more rigorous process in rule-making.
| fumeux_fume wrote:
| The FTC under the current administration has zero interest
| in pushing this forward
| janalsncm wrote:
| To add some color to the regulatory issue as I understand it,
| the court ruled that the impact of this rule would be over
| $100M so they're required to assess cost/benefits of
| alternatives and submit them during the public comment
| period.
|
| I don't even know what the alternative would be apart from
| doing nothing. Making it more of a pain for consumers to
| cancel is zero sum on first order analysis (if I lose a
| dollar because I can't cancel the company gets a dollar) but
| at a second order makes our economy less dynamic by
| entrenching incumbent companies and making it harder for
| consumers to allocate their money towards better
| alternatives.
|
| If a company can trap your money in a labyrinth of process
| they don't have to compete on quality or price. Simple as
| that.
| vlovich123 wrote:
| I'm always amazed how willing the courts are to block
| actions like this on vague technicalities but are then so
| deferent to police violations of civil liberties where even
| a violation can still upholds the original judgement
| against that person and only applies going forward.
| janalsncm wrote:
| The process is broken. If there was an issue with no
| alternatives being specified, the right time to bring
| that up was during the public comment period when there
| weren't any alternatives. Not after, imo.
|
| I get that process needs to be followed but this is
| allowing unnecessary gamesmanship.
| Retric wrote:
| You never hear about the millions of perfectly reasonable
| rulings every year.
|
| The stuff based on vague technicalities that result in
| something you agree with isn't memorable, so it's the
| vague technicalities you disagree with that's memorable.
| paulryanrogers wrote:
| The unreasonable ones seem to be growing at an unusually
| high rate since January.
| bee_rider wrote:
| Do lawmakers want a dynamic economy? I guess that would
| make it harder to keep track of whose "lobbying" checks
| have cleared.
| AngryData wrote:
| I don't see how it isn't blatant judicial corruption that
| big business gets special legal considerations because they
| might not earn as much money.
| dfxm12 wrote:
| When you look at what is happening in Washington, it is
| disingenuous to say something was blocked _because of a
| procedural issue_. It was blocked because the party that
| controls all three branches of the Federal government didn 't
| want it to pass.
| AnimalMuppet wrote:
| No, it was exactly blocked because of a procedural issue.
| Despite the fears of many, Trump is not yet a dictator, and
| the Republican Party is not in total control. Judges rule
| in ways that they don't like _all the time_.
|
| This keeps coming up because Trump tries to act like a
| dictator and just order things to be the way he wants, and
| it doesn't work that way. There are procedures that the
| Federal government has to follow; it can't just ignore them
| and get things _done right now_. And in fact, the
| government being forced to follow procedure is a very good
| thing, even if it 's something we want the government to
| do. It's one of the things standing between where we are
| and a dictatorship.
| Supermancho wrote:
| More than that, it was a good ruling. Judges not
| rubberstamping non/lowball estimates rather than the
| mandating max costing, is toward the public good.
| relaxing wrote:
| Ah yes, the old "ruling against the public good is
| actually toward the public good" argument.
| jfengel wrote:
| I'm afraid I don't really buy that. The court didn't have
| to seek out this procedural issue. The rules are complex
| enough to justify any decision you wish. They simply
| decided by fiat that this case was worth more than $100
| million, and overruled the subject matter experts.
|
| It appears that they make their decision, and then
| justify it. That may not actually be the case -- but if
| it isn't, the outcome is indistinguishable.
|
| It's true that they're not always favoring the President.
| But he is increasingly concentrating his power, and it
| favors him more and more.
| stronglikedan wrote:
| > With the recent federal block of click to cancel, states
| implementing this will be the way to go.
|
| State's rights is just about always the best way to go. It's
| nice to see the power being returned to the people.
| toomuchtodo wrote:
| Usually, it's only "states rights" when conservatives want
| something. To be determined if this sticks as it rolls out to
| more states, or the federal government attempts to infringe
| on state authority. No different than the Missouri governor
| overriding voters and repealing voter-approved paid sick
| leave and minimum wage law, Ohio conservatives attempting to
| override voters on reproductive healthcare, Florida raising
| the bar for ballot initiatives, Texas gerrymandering efforts
| currently in progress, etc.
|
| "Maybe you do not care much about the future of the
| Republican Party. You should. Conservatives will always be
| with us. If conservatives become convinced that they can not
| win democratically, they will not abandon conservatism. The
| will reject democracy." --- David Frum
|
| https://www.google.com/search?q=hypocrisy+of+states+rights
| babypuncher wrote:
| Don't forget what happened in Utah last year.
|
| In 2018, voters passed the Better Boundaries ballot
| initiative, requiring our legislature to adopt non-
| gerrymandered congressional maps. In 2020, the legislature
| passed a law that effectively ignored the results of the
| initiative, and they drew even more gerrymandered maps
| after the census.
|
| We sued the state, and last summer our Supreme Court
| unanimously agreed that, per the state constitution, the
| legislature does not have the power to unilaterally gut
| laws passed by ballot initiative after the fact.
|
| So the legislature haphazardly put together their own
| ballot initiative that would have amended our constitution
| to give them the authority to ignore the results of ballot
| initiatives. This was put on our ballots, but our Supreme
| Court came through unanimously _again_ , saying that the
| text of the initiative was grossly misleading and that they
| did not meet the constitutional requirement to notify the
| electorate far enough in advance of election day. This
| initiative was on our ballots as they had already been
| printed, but the results were not counted per the Supreme
| Court's order.
|
| My state government is still fighting tooth and nail to
| kill Better Boundaries before the 2026 election. None of
| these lawmakers give a single shit about the will of the
| people.
| heymijo wrote:
| Beat for beat what has happened in Ohio. Same for
| enshrining abortion rights in our state constitution. The
| state legislature is hostile to the will of the people.
| xyst wrote:
| Didn't think `states rights` bullshit reasoning would be
| found in HN.
|
| Same thought process the American south used to justify
| slavery and precedent into the American Civil War.
| ecshafer wrote:
| States rights exist in the United States, regardless of if
| its been used for good or ill. The United States is a
| federation, and States Rights ARE a thing. States Rights
| are also used for professional licenses and insurance
| regulations, jumping to slavery is absurdism.
| toomuchtodo wrote:
| > "Slavery and States' Rights" was a speech given by
| former Confederate States Army general Joseph Wheeler on
| July 31, 1894. The speech deals with the American Civil
| War and is considered to be a "Lost Cause" view of the
| war's causation. It is generally understood to argue that
| the United States (the Union) was to blame for the war,
| and downplays slavery as a cause.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slavery_and_States%27_Right
| s
|
| https://web.archive.org/web/20180427082228/http://www.civ
| ilw...
|
| https://news.wttw.com/2022/07/14/states-rights-supreme-
| court...
|
| This is simply history. Calling it absurdism indicates a
| lack of historical knowledge. https://xkcd.com/1053/
| ecshafer wrote:
| It is absurdism. It is dismissing the 10th amendment
| because the argument was also used for slavery. No one is
| thinking that states rights wasn't an argument used for
| slavery. But this is arguing vegetarianism is evil
| because hitler was.
| toomuchtodo wrote:
| I argue it isn't absurdism when the evidence is clear
| that the idea of state rights is continuing to be used to
| subjugate in direct conflict with democracy, versus the
| actual collective and agreed upon belief of deferring to
| states rights and putting power closer to the governance
| of those states.
|
| Historically, it was slavery. Now it's immigration,
| reproductive rights, etc. History doesn't repeat, but it
| rhymes. It's always about control exceeding genuine
| governance. Maybe that'll change, but until evidence and
| outcomes demonstrate otherwise, "the purpose of the
| system is what it does."
| reliabilityguy wrote:
| > the evidence is clear that the idea of state rights is
| continuing to be used to subjugate in direct conflict
| with democracy
|
| Can you provide an example of such evidence?
| simplify wrote:
| Anything can be used for evil, doesn't mean that thing
| instantly becomes evil.
| armchairhacker wrote:
| Allowing states to regulate subscriptions is different than
| slavery.
|
| In particular, states shouldn't have the right to restrict
| travel. If the slaves had free travel they would just leave
| for northern states. If people are able to leave to other
| states (even if it means rebuilding their life), plenty of
| bad state laws are OK because those affected will do so.
| relaxing wrote:
| The 14th amendment says _no_ state shall deprive you of
| your life or liberty, not a minimum of one state, should
| you have have the funds and will to move there.
| AngryData wrote:
| Could I not make the same argument against you for
| authoritarian central state rule bullshit? Maybe in some
| European countries it might actually work alright in their
| current political climates. But how can you look at the US
| right now and be like "Yes, we need more centralized and
| powerful government despite the federal government already
| wielding far more power than ever before or ever imagined
| in the past." We have literal centuries full of lessons on
| why strong authoritarian governments are trash and
| inevitably result in oppression, corruption, internal
| conflict, and war.
| __turbobrew__ wrote:
| > State's rights is just about always the best way to go
|
| Generally agreed. I live in Canada and think we would be much
| better off if we pushed more legislation away from the feds
| and to the provinces. The needs/wants of Alberta/Saskatchewan
| is much different than Quebec for example.
|
| Gun control is a major divisive issue in Canada as gun
| control is 100% at the federal level, but the preferences of
| how it is handles varies hugely between provinces, so much so
| that some provinces are threatening to not enforce the
| federal laws.
|
| Im fine with the feds managing border enforcement,
| immigration, and military -- and collecting taxes to fund
| those programs -- but other than that they should leave to
| the provinces.
|
| The other alternative is that everyone is subject to the mob
| rule of the major population centers which have much
| different needs/wants then those outside of the centers. Why
| not just give the population centers what they want and those
| in rural areas what they want?
| mook wrote:
| Gun control is harder to do like that because guns are
| physical objects and it's trivial to bring them across
| unmanned borders. Something like subscriptions are much
| easier to deal with because that can just be based on
| billing address.
| nkrisc wrote:
| That's good and all for things that begin and end within a
| single state. Some things really should be done at the
| federal level. I don't think a single service I subscribe to
| is based in the state in which I live.
| Spivak wrote:
| Doesn't matter, you get click-to-cancel as long as you're
| in the state that has the law. Where they are based is
| irrelevant.
| nkrisc wrote:
| It's absurd that such laws would need to be passed 50
| times for all US citizens to benefit from it. It should
| be done at the federal level.
|
| State and local laws should be addressing state and local
| issues. The pros and cons of a click-to-cancel law don't
| change from state to state.
| 0cf8612b2e1e wrote:
| No way this passes in 50 states. I would guess something
| like 15 states pass an analogous law.
|
| The question: will companies segregate their customers?
| Everyone gets to click-to-cancel or is there now a
| dedicated code path just for the lucky few?
|
| We are only here because so many businesses made it a
| burden to cancel, so I know how I would bet.
| LocalH wrote:
| > The question: will companies segregate their customers?
| Everyone gets to click-to-cancel or is there now a
| dedicated code path just for the lucky few?
|
| The answer to that is that companies will use geofencing
| to restrict click-to-cancel to only the states that pass
| such laws. We've already seen this happen on a national
| level, when Apple segregated the EU and the rest of the
| world on the topic of sideloading
| dfxm12 wrote:
| State's rights doesn't give power to the people. It gives
| power to mostly gerrymandered state legislatures and to
| appointed judges.
|
| Click to cancel is popular among the people. It was blocked
| _despite_ this. If the people had power (as opposed to
| lobbyists, or big business), this would had passed federally.
| IncreasePosts wrote:
| It was blocked because it was implemented illegally, not
| because people don't have power.
|
| How could this already be passed in CA? Does CA not have
| gerrymandering, appointed judges, and lobbyists?
| kstrauser wrote:
| I confess to a lot of schadenfreude at the powers that be, like
| the US Chamber of Commerce, who fight against these federal
| bills and then find themselves fighting 50 slightly
| incompatible laws. Oh, you thought it was going to be hard to
| comply with that one, single pro-consumer regulation? Have fun!
|
| See also: a patchwork of privacy laws[0] that are vastly harder
| to comply with than a national level GDPR-style law would be.
|
| [0] https://pro.bloomberglaw.com/insights/privacy/state-
| privacy-...
| ChrisArchitect wrote:
| Related background:
|
| _US Court nullifies FTC requirement for click-to-cancel_
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44504699
| xyst wrote:
| As a software engineer, this means job security, lol.
|
| If a few more states pass similar legislation, the default would
| be to make it as easy as possible to unsubscribe/cancel.
| breadwinner wrote:
| One of the ways to prevent unauthorized charges is to use a
| virtual credit card. Many credit cards provide a way to create
| virtual credit card based on your real credit card, for example,
| Citibank [1] and Capital One [2]. Then if the merchant makes it
| hard for you to cancel, just delete your virtual credit card.
|
| You can specify any expiration date for the virtual card (with at
| least 1 month validity). You can also set per-transaction limits
| on this credit card, which ensures the merchant can't charge more
| than the agreed amount.
|
| [1] https://www.cardbenefits.citi.com/Products/Virtual-
| Account-N...
|
| [2] https://www.capitalone.com/learn-grow/money-
| management/what-...
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _One of the ways to prevent unauthorized charges is to use a
| virtual credit card_
|
| This prevents payments, not charges. I've met two totally
| separate funds that buy up these claims and litigate them
| because killing your card doesn't void the purchase contract.
| (And your liability keeps actuating so long as it's not
| cancelled.)
| breadwinner wrote:
| That's true. In addition to preventing payments, you also
| have to make a reasonable attempt to cancel service.
|
| Recently in the case of Dish Network, I tried to call to
| cancel service, and the wait time is 45 minutes. There's no
| way I am doing that. (They don't let you cancel online or via
| chat, calling is the only option). Instead I contacted state
| attorney general's office and they made Dish cancel service.
|
| If you can prove that you made reasonable attempt to cancel
| service then you're off the hook. In my case Dish sent my
| account to collections (for the 1 month it took to cancel
| service) and I wrote them back that I am not paying and why.
| Never heard back from them after that.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| Sending a letter to the company pretty much always works
| and provides proof of the attempt to boot.
| fuckinpuppers wrote:
| This sucks that it's not federal. All these separate state
| regulations just create more burden on the company side to keep
| up, and we almost had it federally. :(
|
| I am happy to see states still pushing forward. But it's just so
| disappointing how much is being taken away for everyone.
| scosman wrote:
| The company only has burden if they want to maintain maximally
| sketchy but legal business practices in every possible locale.
| Doing the right thing is easy to implement.
| bee_rider wrote:
| The companies have lots of money. If they are having trouble
| following the laws, they can just direct the lobbying they were
| going to do at passing a universal consumer protection law.
| floatrock wrote:
| Creating more burden on the company side to keep up is the
| point -- feature, not a bug.
|
| Who do you think lobbies against a federal-level pro-consumer
| bill? Hint: it's not the consumers.
|
| The risk of a huge patchwork of not-completely-overlapping
| state level bills is one of the few checks consumers have
| against federal-level regulatory capture: if it's between a
| single set of federal-level rules vs. a patchwork of state-by-
| state rules, the profitable move becomes "okay, lets just let
| them have the federal-level rules."
|
| The failure modes, of course, are:
|
| - a completely-defanged federal rule which is worse than no
| rule (right-to-repair has continued to suffer this)
|
| - further consolidation: if it's expensive to do business in
| multiple states, only the companies with the deepest pockets
| can continue to grow
|
| Personally, though, my money is still on a growing patchwork of
| state laws will eventually necessitate a good-enough federal
| law.
| ruralfam wrote:
| I have a good many subs or monthly plans. Only one sends me an
| email notifying me that I will be soon be billed and the amount
| billed. All the others never provide any notification whatsoever.
| Can PA also consider a bill that requires notification of billing
| via email?? I'd bet this rule combined with easy-to-cancel would
| be of great, _great_ , benefit to the good citizens of PA.
| account7213 wrote:
| The article says this doesn't apply to entities regulated by the
| state utility commission, the FCC or specifically gym
| memberships. That would seem to exclude a lot of the worst
| offenders.
| pclowes wrote:
| I wonder how hard it would be to generate synthetic credit card
| numbers for each subscription service and then just cancel that
| "card".
|
| I feel there is a whole cadre of consumer tech that is defensive
| against corporate taxes/tolls on our time. Eg: auto phone tree
| navigator, only allowing calls from double opted in contacts etc.
| Buttons840 wrote:
| Sometimes the company will continue to seek payment and put the
| missed payments on your credit report.
|
| That should be illegal as well. If people stop paying for a
| continual service, like a streaming service or a magazine, then
| the service should just stop; companies shouldn't be able to
| accrue credit and continue seeking payment, just cancel the
| service and be done.
|
| If something like a magazine wants a year payment upfront, then
| let them charge for a full year before the first magazine is
| delivered.
| 57473m3n7Fur7h3 wrote:
| There are many banks that offer virtual cards. Meaning you can
| generate unique numbers and individually disable those card
| numbers.
|
| A related thing is, with Revolut you have disposable cards that
| are only possible to charge a single time. Unfortunately I have
| had a bad time trying to use disposable cards. One time I tried
| it the merchant did a single reversible charge for like a
| dollar to verify the card and then they couldn't charge the
| actual amount so the purchase failed. Another time for a
| subscription service (I wanted to try their free 30 day trial
| without forgetting to cancel in time) they apparently got
| metadata telling them the card was disposable and they refused
| it so I had to use the non-disposable card number after all.
| ge96 wrote:
| Interesting I thought it didn't pass (maybe was a different one
| for the entire country)
|
| Yeah the gym cancellation thing where you have to drive to the
| location and sign a paper was annoying me/had to do it
|
| Hope they do something similar with cookies where there has to be
| an option to say no/reject all
| apparent wrote:
| > The bills would also not cover gyms - notorious for arduous
| membership cancellation policies - which are controlled by the
| state Health Club Act. This could be amended into the
| legislation, which Ciresi said he was open to.
|
| What possible good faith reason could there be for exempting
| gyms?
| adamm255 wrote:
| Good faith LOL
| metalman wrote:
| fat people epidemic, and the idea that obesity is deadly, so
| make it harderfor people to give up on there resolutions
| brikym wrote:
| I should be able to cancel from my bank. Use the Visa/MC monopoly
| for good.
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