About 15 years ago, I signed up for a once-a-month visit at a national massage chain. I used my monthly massage pretty regularly, and even kept using it when we moved from Connecticut to West Palm Beach, Fla.Once we moved from West Palm Beach, to Port St. Lucie, I wanted to cancel the membership. The problem is that doing that required me to contact my original club in Connecticut. That was something I never got to, leaving me with dozens of accrued massage credits (which don’t expire) from the past few years.

Cancelling subscriptions should not be this hard

I hit a similar wall when the local outpost of my national gym chain closed. Even though they shutdown the club about a mile from my house, they would not automatically cancel my membership because they had an other location less than 25 miles away.That gym, however, is about a 25 minute ride from my house. Nobody drives 25 minutes to go to the gym. It should not be hard to cancel a subscription, especially one where the original terms have expired. Unfortunately, there are very limited federal rules on how companies handle subscriptions and allowing people to cancel them.

That was supposed to change, but the United States Court of Appeals decided otherwise.

Gym memberships are notoriously hard to cancel.

Image source: Getty Images

“Click-to-cancel” law struck down 

“Click to Cancel” would have made it easy for consumers to cancel their subscriptions. It would have required companies to allow people to cancel their subscriptions using the same method they used to sign up.

That consumer-friendly rule change was struck down by the US court of appeals for the eighth circuit just days before it was set to take effect.

Here is what the law was trying to accomplish, according to court documents.

“Many American consumers have found themselves unwittingly enrolled in recurring subscription plans, continuing to pay for unwanted products or services because they neglected to cancel their subscriptions.  These so-called ‘negative option’ programs take various forms but generally share the key feature of a term or condition allowing sellers to interpret a customer’s silence, or failure to take any affirmative action, as acceptance of an offer,” the court filing read. 

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The new rules would have given consumers more options.

“Given the proliferation of negative option plans across economic sectors, the Federal Trade Commission set out to modernize its original negative option rule, promulgated in 1973, which covered only one form of negative option plan,” the court shared.

The current effort was designed to expand the scope of consumer protections.

“In 2023, the Commission proposed extending the scope of the 1973 Rule to cover ‘all forms of negative option marketing in all media.’ In October 2024, the FTC amended the 1973 Rule by a 3-2 vote, adding provisions that bar sellers from misrepresenting material facts and require disclosure of material terms, express consumer consent, and a simple cancellation mechanism,” it added.

Those changes made sense for consumers, but many companies were against them and the court struck down the changes on a technicality.

What “Click to Cancel” would have done for consumers

• Require companies to let you cancel subscriptions the same way you signed up
• Prohibit hiding cancellation behind phone calls or complex menus
• Demand full disclosure of auto-renew terms and upfront consent
• Apply across all industries and media types (not just online)

Why was ‘Click to Cancel’ cancelled?

The court struck down the rule on what seems like a technicality 

“Various industry associations and individual businesses sought review of the Rule in four federal circuit courts on the grounds that the FTC exceeded the scope of its statutory authority in promulgating the Rule, failed to satisfy a procedural requirement by declining to conduct a preliminary regulatory analysis during the rulemaking process, and acted arbitrarily and capriciously under the Administrative Procedure Act (“APA”) in issuing a rule of this scope,” the court ruling shared.

That was enough for it to strike the law down days before it was supposed to take effect.

“The Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation consolidated the petitions for review in this court. Concluding that the Commission failed to follow procedural requirements under section 22 of the Federal Trade Commission Act  We grant the petitions for review and vacate the Rule,” it added.

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That’s a lot of fancy court talk to say that companies can make it really difficult to cancel a subscription. 

“While we certainly do not endorse the use of unfair and deceptive practices in negative option marketing, the procedural deficiencies of the Commission’s rulemaking process are fatal here,” the court wrote, sharing that “vacatur of the entire Rule is appropriate in this case because of the prejudice suffered by Petitioners as a result of the Commission’s procedural error.”

The rule would have gone into effect July 14. Multiple states, including California and New York, are proceeding with their own versions of a “Click to Cancel” law. 

Court ruling on FTC Click to Cancel 2025

• A federal court has cancelled a rule that would have made it easier for consumers to cancel subscriptions.
• The law would have gone into effect on July 14.
• The court agreed that consumers should not be misled, but found that the FTC overstepped its authority when it passed the rule.
• California and New York are moving forward with their own laws regarding making canceling subscriptions easier.

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