A court vacated the FTC's click-to-cancel rule

A rule requiring easy cancellation, then a procedural reversal

On 16 October 2024, the Federal Trade Commission announced a final click-to-cancel rule under its Negative Option Rule authority, requiring sellers to make cancelling a subscription as easy as signing up for one. The rule barred misrepresenting material facts, required clear disclosure of terms before collecting billing information, required express informed consent before charging a negative-option fee, and required a simple mechanism to cancel that immediately stopped further charges. Industry groups petitioned for a stay; the Commission denied that petition on 13 December 2024, and the rule proceeded toward taking effect.

What the rule targeted, and how it was undone

The rule addressed subscription sellers broadly, not one industry, and its mechanism was procedural: it governed how consent and cancellation had to be presented, not what could be charged. It did not survive intact. In a 2025 decision in Custom Communications, Inc. v. FTC, the Eighth Circuit found that the Commission's failure to issue a required preliminary regulatory analysis before finalising the rule was procedurally insufficient, and vacated it, a ruling on how the rule was made, not on whether easy cancellation is a good idea.

The friction: the policy question is open again

The FTC's own Federal Register notice, published 12 February 2026, confirms the Commission is reverting the Negative Option Rule to the form it held before the 2024 rule took effect, in order to conform to the court's decision. The FTC's negative option rule page, as retrieved on 16 September 2026, shows the agency has since opened an Advance Notice of Proposed Rulemaking, dated 13 March 2026, seeking comment on a new approach. The specific click-to-cancel requirements are therefore not currently in force as a distinct federal rule, even though the underlying consumer complaint that prompted them has not gone away; state law and individual platform policies may fill some of the gap in the meantime.

• Is a subscription's cancellation process actually as easy as its sign-up, regardless of which federal rule currently applies?
• Does a relevant state law require what the vacated federal rule required?
• Is the FTC's new rulemaking likely to reinstate similar requirements, and on what timeline?

A rule can be undone for how it was written, without anyone reaching a verdict on what it required. That distinction is easy to lose once a rule is described only as struck down.