News hardware France wants to force internet giants to adopt life-changing feature
Published on 07/08/2022 at 18:13
On all the generalist media in France, we are currently talking regarding purchasing power, and the government’s major bill to relieve the wallets of French men and women. A measure of this bill is completely forgotten by this same generalist press when it is likely to change our lives in terms of our online behavior: the mandatory implementation of the “Cancellation” button. We tell you regarding it.
France wants to force the hand of a huge number of internet giants with a Termination Bill
On July 7, 2022, the French government presented to the Council of Ministers a bill centered around the issue of purchasing power. This project will be scrutinized by the National Assembly during the month of July.
Most of the measures of this vast Borne government project do not fall within our editorial line at all (perhaps by pushing a little it would be possible for JVTECH to address the issue of the audiovisual license fee, if need be.. .), but there is one that made us wince: the implementation of an easy-to-access “Cancellation” button mandatory for all online subscription services.
This idea surely follows the rant of the European Commission which, in addition to having forced Apple to abandon the Lightningalso forced Amazon to make unsubscribing from its Prime offer as easy and accessible as signing up can be.
What the bill says, concretely, is that the termination of a contract or any subscription service on the internet or in a smartphone application must be possible in 3 clicks maximum.
Better still, a “Cancellation” button must imperatively appear on the sites of all the companies that take your money with the regularity of a Swiss watch. Yes, the site of your electricity supplier will be treated in the same way as a titan à la Netflix.
Attention, it is not sure and certain that this proposal will be applied. The parliamentary rules are complex, the proposal comes in a “package” with other measures that are debated and the government party does not have a majority in the Assembly.
That being said, if all goes as planned, the entry into force should take place from the very beginning of 2023.
Online subscription policy: Netflix, Apple, Amazon, Xbox… everyone is affected by the new French law
Mobile telephony, VOD services like Netflix or Disney+, Amazon Prime, Cloud, PlayStation Plus, Xbox Game Pass, music streaming like Spotify, VPN, media… impossible to draw up an exhaustive list as the economic model of the subscription is found everywhere on the internet. Ensuring stable and regular income for businesses, having a substantial mass of subscribers is the Holy Grail for any online service.
The thing is that the democratization of subscriptions also comes with the democratization of fairly deceitful practices. For now still legal, but no less morally questionable.
Everyone knows it, if it is extremely simple to register for almost anything and to be debited ten euros per month, it gets complicated when you try to free yourself.
The various web giants do everything to highlight a huge “SUBSCRIBE” button as soon as you visit their site, but finding the slightest trace of an “unsubscribe” button is hell. There are almost no counterexamples to this general truth.
Sometimes, there is simply no button to unsubscribe and you have to follow very painful steps to get there (phone calls, AR letters, etc.), even when there is no commitment on our part. . Therefore, we give up, and we postpone the termination. In the meantime, hundreds of euros can be debited to us… for nothing.
This policy, understandable from the point of view of companies which wish to maximize their profits, is obviously harmful for you and me.
Having a clear, clean and precise button dedicated to the cancellation has a good chance of causing large companies to lose a little money but to gain a little purchasing power for thousands or even millions of French people.
