This is one of those things that sounds really good on the surface, and hopefully it is so, but I'm always wary of unintended consequences when it comes to legislation.
Are there any loopholes or bad behavior this might enable? Just something to keep in mind and consider, but on the surface I'd have to say that this does sound pretty good.
I have the exact same line of reasoning.. and unfortunately I think it’s often near impossible to know how laws may be abused (sometimes it’s completely predictable).
I think people have already touched on it potentially pushing certain companies out of PA.. which in theory reduces competition which is bad for consumers. So that’s one example of how this legislation that’s designed to protect consumers could end up hurting them from another angle.
Another thing I’d wonder about is: if laws like this were to catch on.. does it start to disincentivize subscription-based business models? We’ve seen such a shift towards subscriptions.. but would that potentially change dramatically?
> Are there any loopholes or bad behavior this might enable?
Yes; if you're a company that doesn't like Click to Cancel, and your company's Pennsylvania business is small relative to your total business, the logical choice is simply to stop serving Pennsylvania citizens.
One thing I can think of immediately is that smaller companies may have to implement something now that wasn't there - whereas larger can easily absorb the cost.
I've seen "subscription forms" that don't actually process anything, they just save the info in a database for someone to manually do stuff with later. These companies will now have to work out how to do a cancel button.
Arguably, they should have to anyway, and it's not likely to be a big issue, but these types of legislation are often used to make a "moat" for established players that new ones find hard to cross.
Despite the title all the bill actually requires is that the company allow cancellation over the internet if the subscription was bought over the internet. No actual clickable cancel button is required. In particular handling it by email is fine under the bill.
Are there any loopholes or bad behavior this might enable? Just something to keep in mind and consider, but on the surface I'd have to say that this does sound pretty good.