by Julia Solomon Ensor
Federal Trade Commission
The FTC has long regulated negative options through the Negative Option Rule and strategic enforcement actions. Recently, the FTC built on that work by announcing a set of common-sense revisions to the Negative Option Rule, now known as the Rule Concerning Recurring Subscriptions and Other Negative Option Programs. The revisions are designed to protect people from misleading enrollment tactics, billing practices, and cancellation policies, and provide businesses with clear rules of the road, all consolidated in one place, to help them build customer trust and avoid enforcement action.