Why isn't there yet a "two clicks away unsubscribe" law? Unsubscribing from any service is two clicks away: one for unsubscribing and the second should be a mail with a link to confirm that you effectively want to unsubscribe. And you should receive another email confirming that you definitely unsubscribed. This button for unsubscribing should be visible at all times from whatever app/browser/GUI you're using. It is as simple as that. Why isn't this a solved problem yet?
California actually passed a law requiring unsubscribing from a subscription to be as easy as subscribing to it. NY Times is infamous for requiring calling to unsubscribe, but if your billing address is in California, you can do it on the website.
Such businesses deserve canceling customers to be as inefficient and costly as possible in the cancel call.
"Ah, my name? I'll spell it out. It's a bit long and difficult to understand through a phone"
"D like the first letter of De…o…xy…ri…bo…nu…cle…ic". A few seconds pass. "You can confirm you got it right? Right, D, D like Deoxyribonucleic, the first word in DNA. That's what you have in your cells. Okay, were was I? Let me start over… What, you are what you say? Ah, annoyed? It'd be easier on a form on your website you know… bear with me…"
While this sounds fun and satisfies our justice reflex, the only person you're "getting back at" here is a low paid call-center worker who you're causing stress by missing their targets and tanking their metrics, who has no power over decisions like this.
It's the equivalent of trying to inconvenience BigStoreCo by harassing a register worker and something best avoided.
- suddenly all low paid workers would miss the same targets, in which case no individual can be blamed anymore
- the madness might stop rapidly because it would make the dark pattern worthless
I sympathize with the low paid workers. I also don't like the fact that by that logic, businesses can just use low paid workers to protect themselves from the consequences of their dark patterns. Like, it's all too easy to go full evil and just put relatable human shields in front so nobody feels like lifting a finger. What are we supposed to do against this?
Of course, it won't happen: the effective way of fixing this would be through law.
Now, while this comment is serious, the previous one was more intended as humor.
I disagree here. The right action is boycotting the company and lobbying/protesting/voting for better consumer and worker protections. Or organize it as a concentrated group action so your first point holds, but don't just do it solo.
Boycotting is a nice counter measure. Effectively, you don't even participate in funding the dark pattern and you put a pressure on fixing it because of the loss of income.
You need to know the issue beforehand though.
lobbying/protesting/voting for better consumer and worker protections is obviously the right thing to do, and acting collectively too. Only collective actions will be effective against such tings, most probably.
Just don't use the word "harassment" in your marketing material, and find a solid justification for the existence of your business for legitimate purposes, while at the same time reaching your target xD.
Robert Loggia. R as in Robert Loggia. O as in "Oh my god, it's Robert Loggia." B as in "By God! It's Robert Loggia." E as in "Everybody loves Robert Loggia." R as in Robert Loggia. T as in "Tim, look over there! It's Robert Loggia." Space. L as in "Look! It's Robert Loggia."...
Maybe other countries are different, but terminations here are a unilateral declaration of intent. Would it occur to you to tell a company exactly how its communications (e.g. invoices) should look like? No, of course not. And neither can a company tell you exactly how your terminations should look like. It's none of their business.
Same rule has been in place in the EU for a few years, such a godsend. Before there were still a lot of places where subscribing could be done online, but unsubscribing required a registered letter.
IIRC Colorado has or had such a law. I took advantage of it to cancel Xbox Live back in the day by updating my billing address and then canceling the service (despite not living in Colorado).
you could do a one-click unsubscribe, but then set up a website where that button keeps jumping away from your mouse for 20 minutes, while it's showing you uplifting messages why in fact, you should continue with the subscription. Still, only one click!
Or, follow this maze with your mouse pointer until the unsubscribe button in the middle. If you hover-move across a wall, you need to start from the beginning. Good luck!
> but then set up a website where that button keeps jumping away from your mouse for 20 minutes, while it's showing you uplifting messages why in fact, you should continue with the subscription. Still, only one click
Most laws can be misinterpreted, it doesn't necessarily mean they are useless.
Pretty sure when I unsubbed from Amazon Prime a few years back, I had to navigate three or four pages of “are you really sure…” where the primary button sometimes took me further and sometimes sent me back. It was fun. And afterwards my Roku TV box somehow managed to resub me twice even though I didn’t watch any Prime content (customer support rep said it was the Roku and I had no other explanation).
No idea. I just wanted the customer service rep to reverse the credit card charge (yeah I only found out from monthly review of credit card bill, pretty sure I never even got an email saying my subscription was reenabled) and cancel the subscription, and didn’t prod when that goal was achieved. After the second time I ditched the Roku altogether. IIRC I also did a sign-out-everywhere.
