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
