New York City has adopted a new rule that bans companies from using deceptive subscriptions to trap customers into paying for gym memberships, streaming services and other recurring charges, the city’s consumer protection office said.
The new rule, which will start on 1 October, promises hefty fines and aggressive enforcement for violators. Companies that do not provide a simple way to cancel could pay $525 per user subscription, back fees and additional fines.
The city is also targeting so-called “junk fees” that raise the final price of everything from apartments to sporting events, with a proposed rule that requires sellers to “advertise the total price for any good or service, including all mandatory additional charges and fees, up front”, according to a release shared with the Guardian.
New York would be the first US city to implement such a ban.
I’m surprised just as much by Mamdani’s policies as I am by how much power American cities have to govern themselves. You can move to a different city and suddenly it’s a new world.
In the EU, or at least in my country, cities have very little power, and so the laws are virtually the same in all of them. Whenever there are any differences, it’s mostly minor stuff like littering penalties or parking rules.
It is pretty wild how different laws are around the country, make a wrong turn and you can suddenly be committing a felony for something that was 100% legal on the other side of the border.
I’m from Pennsylvania, right next door to us in New Jersey. There was one story a couple years ago about a woman in Philly who made a wrong turn, crossed the bridge into NJ, and while trying to find somewhere to turn around and go back home, she got pulled over for some minor traffic violation or something.
But the catch is that she was carrying a gun. She was 100% legal in PA, had her carry permit on her, but PA and NJ gun laws are very different and NJ doesn’t recognize a PA license to carry. So she ended spending like a month in jail and was facing I think 3 years in prison all because of a wrong turn.
I’ve made that same kind of wrong turn before and all it’s cost me was a few minutes of my time and a couple bucks in tolls.
And it’s not just guns, we have a patchwork of all kinds of different stupid laws, marijuana for example.
This city is singularly populous among others in the US. I mean we’re packed in here pretty tight.
On top of that, the city’s mayoral office wields quite a bit more implicit power than the runners up.
Which is why historically NYC mayors have so often been bought to mostly sit on their hands. Because one activist mayor in NYC can do more for more people than most governors.
If you list these by gdp per capita, American cities take up like 25 out of the top 30 spots. That’s not the only thing that goes into it surely, but as a quick baseline, that’s kind of impressive in its own way
Omg this all needs to be country-wide
There was an FTC law for exactly this during Biden but I’m guessing nothing ever came of it. Basically, cancelling had to be as easy as signing up.
FTC not FCC
the article mentions this y’all
A national click-to-cancel rule introduced by the Biden administration was struck down by a federal judge in 2025, days before it was set to go into effect, over a procedural rule. Donald Trump’s FTC plans to pass a similar rule in coming months.
https://www.consumerfinancemonitor.com/2025/07/23/eighth-circuit-voids-ftc-click-to-cancel-rule/ :
Under federal law, the FTC must issue a preliminary regulatory analysis when a proposed rule would have an annual effect on the national economy surpassing $100 million. The FTC said that the rule would not have an annual $100 million impact on the economy. However, an Administrative Law Judge found that the proposed rule would have an annual effect surpassing the $100 million threshold. The FTC was not excused from having to prepare the analysis if its initial economic analysis was deemed inaccurate, the judges wrote. They said that after the Administrative Law Judge’s decision, the FTC could have reissued its Notice of Proposed Rulemaking with the required preliminary analysis.
“Whoa, slow down there! You’re going to have to take the time to do a study on exactly how much money these deceptive practices will not be able to collect if the deceptive practices are banned!”
The hero we needed. My comments run on extrapolation and assumptions.