Imagine your favourite author has a new book coming out, and your local bookshop is offering to deliver it to you for free on publication day. All you have to do in return is sign up to their new “reading club”.
It seems like a great deal — until you keep forgetting to cancel. Books arrive that you don’t read, money keeps being paid out of your account. And when you finally find time to go to the shop, they say they need the cancellation in writing.Oh, and the person who deals with cancellations is on a day off.
The online equivalent is common, with the cancellation of many online subscriptions demanding great effort — significantly more than joining in the first place. Under the new rule, online businesses based in the US will have to make it as easy for consumers around the world to end a particular service as it was to join in the first place.