For me: Cancelling paid subscriptions should be as easy as subscribing. I hate the fact that they actively hide the unsubscribe option or that you sometimes should have to write an e-mail if you want to unsubscribe.
Dating sites besieging their users with bots and fake profiles.
The FTC under Biden was actually craking down on that. It was called the “Click to Cancel” rule, but that was literally a month before the election. :/
In the US, unsubscribing from email spam is legally required to be easy under the CAN-SPAM act. For paid subscription services, I believe they also are required to be as easy to leave as they are to join in the EU and California.
Somewhat related, many dark patterns are treated like fraud.
Companies changing the terms of the contract on you.
Yes, but - in many of those contracts (particularly end-user license agreements) you agreed to them changing the terms of the contract. You also have an “out” - not using the product any more.
You’re right though: it’s slimy. Anything slimy thing can be put into a contract!
Source: I’m not a lawyer, but worked in an office with a lot of them, and worked with software license agreements in particular.
I’m so curious now. Do you know how those apply? I mean, can they change the terms on you without notice or is that notice legally required? And say they want to feed all your data of however many years to AI. If you accidentally use it once, do they get permission for everything? What if you agree only because you want to delete your data?
I have so many questions. lol
You usually get an email saying something is changing. Problem is, you’ve already paid and if it’s a material change, now you have to agree to continue using your property. Sometimes you don’t get a notice and it’s a “software update” that now pushes ads onto a product you bought and are now shit outta luck since you can’t return it. Samsung and Roku are bad for this.
Loaning money to your own political campaign and then paying yourself back, including an interest rate set by you, using donor funds.
There are a number of things that are legal here in the US, which would count as corruption in other places.
all i’m going to say is whatever shit adobe is pulling because i could yap about this forever with anyone
Which particular part? I’m interested and somewhat outside of the situation.
the fact that they decided to charge $90 a month and $65 to cancel is truly evil
Any type of exit fee like account closing. Any costs for leaving should be charges before leaving as part of business costs either at the start or part of monthly or whatever. Leaving should be free.
Cunts buying politicians.
Is that not illegal?!
The fucking president has a shitcoin that ppl are using to pay tribute.
The fucking president
… is Coin Operated.
Advertising. At what point did we as a society decide that it was perfectly acceptable for companies to manipulate us - especially children - into buying shit we don’t need and didn’t even want until the ad sold us on it? It’s fucking wild.
Marketing wasn’t really a thing until sometime around the Industrial Revolution and post-WW1. Before then, we didn’t really have the capacity to produce more than what people needed. Marketing basically just consisted of “here’s my product, here’s why it’s superior to others.” But with the post-war boom and the rise in manufacturing, producers were suddenly able to out-produce the demand. So they invented marketing, to get people to buy things that they didn’t actually need. The idea of “create a problem so you can sell the solution” was born.
Adblocking feels to me like it should be illegal, but isn’t. I have adblockers on all my devices and haven’t seen an ad for years; it feels like a secret super power and stopped the web from looking like a trashy back alley.
I am always shocked when I have to use a browser without an ad blocker. How do people tolerate it?
I mean, I get it. I know many people have no idea about adblocking, etc. But goddam. It’s so awful without it.
You should rawdog fox news sometime. Their cookie pop-up is WILD
I love how I’ve lost all perspective on what a “normal” ad is. Whenever I see one I’m often either super confused at the approach or it’s so bland I just don’t care. Once you stop seeing them routinely they feel so ridiculous
I’m in the same boat, but you also have to remember that blocking ads typically involves blocking tracking too. You’re right they the ads are much more bland or misdirected but that’s because there’s little to no targeting data (probably just your IP address).
I’m mostly talking about the stuff I see on a TV when I’m in a waiting room or an airport or something
Right! It’s kinda wild when you do see them. I always equate it to the feeling of being in a casino.
What really throws me is tv commercials. When I do see one, like in a waiting room or something, all I can think is, “people fall for this?”
They usually depend on just making you remember them (the most extreme example I can think of is the “I’m on a horse” old spice ad from like 15 years ago, which admittedly is very clever/funny/well executed), regardless of the message or context. They just want brand recognition a lot of the time. You’re at the supermarket, you see 10 of basically the same cereal, but this one brand of cereal feels more legit or just “draws you in” because of a subconscious association. In that way unfortunately it works most of the time, especially if you don’t have a strong opinion on a product.
It’s weird they don’t put more effort into stopping them, TBH. I’ve heard it’s because they’d rather collect extra analytics than do any foolproofing that might interfere with it.
And the fact that a lot of children’s TV shows are nothing but thinly veiled toy commercials. Hilariously parodied in Dinosaurs
Ordered food at Sonic on their app. After I ordered, it popped up with ads for travel, various credit cards, etc. Completely crazy to me that they’re triple dipping on monetization now (sell me food, sell my data and then sell me other shit while trying to sell me food.)
I recently went to Sonic, didn’t use the app, and ended up with norovirus for free.
It happened gradually, like frogs in a kettle.
When it was just a guy putting up a sign in front of his smithy it was kind of harmless. Ditto for having a single text-only paper ad for people who are new to town. But, it was a slippery slope.
You can thank Sigmund Freud’s nephew Edward Bernays
Specifically his 1928 book Propaganda which basically created PR and modern advertising.
Corporations that don’t pay taxes being allowed to make millions in profit while their employees qualify for welfare because they pay them so little.
What’s worse is those same organisations get corporate welfare (tax breaks) but fight tooth and nail to prevent their workers from getting it.
They should just make it so that whatever they announce as their “earnings” to their stockholders should also be the amount that they are taxed for.
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EULAs that say ‘using this <whatever> indicates your acceptance of these terms’. Seems like it ought to be illegal but it’s super common.
Just because they put it in the terms doesn’t it legal.
It kinda does make it legal. If you don’t agree to the terms of the product, then you are using it illegally. It sucks, but that’s where the law is. I am typing this on a Linux laptop in Firefox, but those have terms and conditions, too!
That depends on the location/jurisdiction, but I do have a hard time believing that any court would uphold a EULA stating that you have to cook dinner for any Microsoft employee that happens to request it, just because to installed Windows 11.
I believe a fair number of juristictions also invalidate any EULA that’s only viewable after you’ve purchased a product so most software EULAs are worth less than toilet paper anyway.
Still has a chilling effect on pushback
You know, I’m not actually sure how binding it is exactly, aside from not totally. It must do something or they wouldn’t bother getting pretend consent.
Riding down a mountain road on a bicycle, going 50 mph, without a helmet on.
That is illegal in a bunch of places, riding a bike without a helmet
Biden administration was working on making that unsubscribe bullshit illegal last year. But then Trump so those tactics will probably be mandatory pretty soon…
I thought that happened? I’ve noticed unsubscribing is generally like 2 clicks now. I almost always see a link at the bottom of emails.
Click to Cancel was put in as a rule, but it requires active enforcement. It also had a 180 day grace period from last October, so it hasn’t even gone into effect yet.
Going through TSA.
