{
  "id": 14386817,
  "title": "What is New York City’s ‘Click to Cancel’ rule, and does India have a similar policy?",
  "url": "https://urgent.news/2026/10/14/what-is-new-york-citys-click-to-cancel-rule-and-does-india-have-a",
  "topic": "business",
  "section": "Business",
  "published": "2026-10-14T06:23:59.000Z",
  "source": {
    "name": "The Hindu - Sci-Tech",
    "slug": "the-hindu-sci-tech",
    "url": "https://www.thehindu.com/sci-tech/technology/what-is-new-york-citys-click-to-cancelrule-and-does-india-have-asimilarpolicy/article71578030.ece"
  },
  "original_language": "en",
  "account": "On October 1, New York City's Mayor Zohran Mamdani introduced the city's \"Click to Cancel\" rule, designed to enable residents to cancel any subscription as easily as they signed up, ideally with a single click. Mamdani emphasized the importance of this rule, stating, \"No one should need 45 minutes of hold music to stop paying for something they never wanted.\" He added, \"If a company can take your money with one click, you should be able to get your money back with one click.\" The rule aims to simplify the cancellation process, making it swift, transparent, and customer-friendly, potentially saving New Yorkers up to $162.5 million annually.\n\nUnder the \"Click to Cancel\" rule, the Department of Consumer and Worker Protection (DCWP) will enforce the regulation, complementing New York state's existing subscription terms laws. The rule applies to any type of goods or services with automatic renewal or continuous service offers, except for government-linked businesses and certain licensed financial institutions. The cancellation mechanism must be as straightforward as the one used to provide consent, eliminating any \"dark patterns\" that make it difficult for customers to cancel subscriptions.\n\nTo address this issue, India also has a bank-based regulation, the Reserve Bank of India's 'Digital Payments – E-mandate Framework', which mandates pre-transaction and post-transaction notifications for recurring transactions. This framework aims to protect customers from deceptive practices. However, despite these regulations, many consumers are still manipulated by merchants who exploit them through \"dark patterns.\" A study by Datum Intelligence revealed that popular e-commerce platforms and quick commerce providers often lack clear pre-renewal reminders and complex cancellation processes, leaving Indian shoppers without the ability to easily \"click to cancel.\"",
  "summary": "It can feel effortless to sign up online for a gym membership, a grocery subscription, a mobile phone plan, or a magazine delivery. When one wants to cancel the same service, however, the process is often so convoluted and time-consuming that customers end up keeping a subscription they’d prefer to eliminate",
  "key_points": [],
  "editors_take": null,
  "illustration": null,
  "coverage": {
    "outlets": 1,
    "also_reported_by": []
  },
  "ai_generated": true,
  "disclaimer": "Summaries, key points and the editor’s take are written by software from other outlets’ reporting and may contain errors — always check the linked original."
}