Subscription-Based Marketers Should Prepare For NY's New Automatic Renewal Law

As more and more marketers take to the Internet to provide goods and services in this post-pandemic era, subscription-based offerings are on the rise. With the click of a mouse, consumers can get everything from vitamins, to wine, to work out gear on an auto-recurring basis. However, marketers who make subscription-based offers need to be aware of the myriad of laws governing such offers both at the federal and state level, including New York's Automatic Renewal Law (ARL), which goes into effect on February 9, 2021.

The Current Landscape

At the federal level, negative option/automatic renewal offers (i.e., offers where a consumer's lack of action to stop or cancel is deemed consent) have increasingly become the focus of the FTC's attention. In recent years, the FTC has brought actions against marketers who engage in unlawful automatic renewal practices to entice and retain consumers through subscription based contracts, relying on various laws, rules and