On May 9, 2025, New York Governor Kathy Hochul signed a large budget bill with “major components of legislation necessary to implement the state transportation, economic development, and environmental conservation budget for...more
Businesses offering subscriptions or other ongoing services continue to face a growing, and increasingly complex, patchwork of state auto-renewal laws (ARLs). 2025 brings a fresh wave of developments across the states. In...more
Last Friday, the FTC’s final Negative Option Rule was published in the Federal Register, starting the clock on the effective dates for the agency’s expansive overhaul of requirements related to goods or services sold through...more
Automatic renewals continue to be a big priority for state regulators. When companies work to develop strategies to comply with the growing patchwork of specific state laws in this area, they often start by looking at...more
Adobe needs no introduction. It makes the software that enables many of our readers to view this complaint and it makes the software that enables many of our non-readers to touch up photos to make themselves appear more...more
Last month, the New York AG filed a lawsuit against Sirius XM Radio, alleging that the company “sells subscriptions that are easy to purchase, and extremely difficult to cancel.” Consumers who want to cancel their...more
Most NAD cases are brought by competitors, but NAD can also initiate a proceeding pursuant to its “responsibility for monitoring and reviewing national advertising for truthfulness and accuracy.” Looking at the cases NAD...more
In 2017, the FTC announced that Adore Me, an online lingerie company, had agreed to return more than $1.3 million to customers who enrolled in a negative-option membership program offering discounts and other benefits. Almost...more
Rihanna’s Savage X Fenty is an online subscription service that sells women’s lingerie. Like many other subscription services, they have faced scrutiny over how they advertise automatic renewals. In February 2020, Tina.org...more
Programs that automatically renew have been under a lot of scrutiny lately. Although the focus of scrutiny has often been on how people sign up, both regulators and plaintiffs’ attorneys have also been paying attention to how...more
Earlier this week, we posted that a plaintiff filed a proposed class action against the NFL over its automatic renewal practices. The complaint alleges that the NFL used “dark patterns” to enroll consumers in its NFL+...more
Last week, a plaintiff filed a proposed class action against the NFL over its automatic renewal practices. The plaintiff alleges that the company used deceptive practices to automatically subscribe its Game Pass users to a...more
TINA.org recently announced that it had filed complaints with the FTC and the Connecticut Department of Consumer Protection, urging them to investigate Hello Fresh’s marketing practices related to a campaign advertising...more
Last month, plaintiffs filed a class action lawsuit against YouTube (and its parent company Google), alleging that the company violates Oregon laws by automatically renewing paid subscriptions to premium music, television,...more
Subscription services and other automatic renewals continue to be a hot topic, at both the federal and state levels. The FTC recently announced that it was going to increase its enforcement against companies that don’t comply...more
Earlier today, the FTC issued a policy statement warning marketers against using “dark patterns” to trick or trap consumers into subscription services. The statement is primarily intended to assist marketers by providing...more
In 2017, California updated its automatic renewal law to create some of the strictest requirements in the country. Now, just four years later, the Governor Newsom signed a new law that will impose even stricter requirements....more
In recent years, a number of states have passed laws governing automatic renewals. New York is the latest state to jump on this trend. Its current law only applies to certain contracts “for service, maintenance, or repair to...more
We’ve written about automatic renewals before, but the $10 million price tag in the FTC’s settlement with the operators of ABCmouse should grab your attention.
The FTC alleged that over a three-year period, the company...more
Subscription plans that automatically renew at the end of a term are becoming more popular with companies. They’re also getting more attention from regulators and class action attorneys. As we’ve discussed before, some states...more
Earlier this year, we posted about new laws governing automatic renewals in DC and Vermont. Starting on July 31, 2019, companies also need to worry about a similar statute in North Dakota....more
On July 1, 2019, a new law governing automatic renewals will go into effect in Vermont. Although the law includes two provisions that are more stringent than those found in other state laws, the Vermont law is more limited in...more
Last week, eHarmony agreed to pay up to $2.2 million to resolve allegations brought by four California counties and the city of Santa Monica over the company’s billing practices. That includes a payment of $1.2 million in...more