On May 9, 2025, the FTC announced that it is deferring the compliance deadline for the Negative Option Rule by 60 days to July 14. This announcement came five days before the original compliance date for the majority of the Rule’s provisions. All three Commissioners voted in favor of the deferral.
The announcement explains that the Commission conducted a fresh assessment of the burdens that forcing compliance by May 14 would impose on regulated entities and determined that the May 14 compliance deadline insufficiently accounted for the complexity of compliance. The announcement provides a few examples of the requirements imposed by the new Rule, and notes, “as an example, companies will not be able to force consumers to interact with live or virtual customer service representatives—whether in person, on the phone, through instant messaging, or by any other means—unless that is how the consumer signed up in the first place.”
The final paragraph of the announcement highlights that the Commission is open to amending the Rule to address any problems with the Rule that might be exposed in the future.
The Negative Option Rule is currently under challenge in the 8th Circuit. On March 17, the FTC filed its brief in defense of the Rule.
For a summary of the new Rule’s requirements, see our prior blog post and feel free to contact Laura Kim, Terrell McSweeny, Andrew Siegel, or Ali Remick with any questions about the implications of this announcement.