On August 26, 2024, the FTC announced a stipulated order and settlement with Care.com for 8.5 MM. The complaint, filed in W.D. Tex. alleges various violations of Section 5 of the FTC Act and the Restore Online Shoppers Confidence Act with respect to the manner in which Care.com advertised and promoted the number of jobs available on its platform, and its auto-renew or subscription feature. The FTC labeled Care.com’s subscription cancellation flow a “dark pattern”; it is hard to locate, and, once found, consumers must “navigate a multipage process rife with deceptive design tactics”. The conclusion, per the FTC is that Care.com just doesn’t want users to be able to cancel. In the stipulated order, the parties agreed that:
- Care.com “must provide a simple mechanism” to cancel the subscription and “must immediately stop any subsequent or recurring charge”;
- This simple mechanism must be easy to find and use. The benchmark: to cancel must be as easy to find and do as signing up in the first instance; and
- The cancellation feature must be provided in the same mechanism or medium as sign up – in other words, if the user signed up for the subscription via the website, you can’t require them to call an 800 number to cancel.
The FTC did not require Care.com to engage in a 1 or 2 click cancellation process, and was not prescriptive about how many steps or clicks are required to cancel. But that’s likely where they are headed soon. Indeed, they have indicated that they will engage in rule making soon on easy cancellation. See Turning up the Heat on Junk Fees and Drip Pricing: Federal and State Regulations Require Increased Transparency into Pricing and Contract Cancellation | Crowell & Moring LLP