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A comment on Mastercard will stop free trials from automatically billing once they're over. Parent comment

Re:Mastercard will stop free trials from automatically billi... by hirundo on Thursday January 17, 2019 @10:52AM (#18931659)
Is it so dark if you shine a bright light on it at the start? We collect credit card info as part of the free trial signup, and clearly state the recurring terms -- start date, amount and interval -- in a prominent box right over the submit button.

If the transaction succeeds they immediately get a thank you email with the recurring terms prominently repeated again. There's also a link to the cancellation button, which is available immediately.

I've accepted this sort of deal as a user and think it's only nefarious if it's not clear or if cancellation is difficult.

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Re:Mastercard will stop free trials from automatically billi... by stronglikedan on Saturday January 19, 2019 @09:47AM (#18947285)
> Is it so dark if you shine a bright light on it at the start?

Absolutely. A lot of dark patterns are prominent. They prey on an innate human fallibility. In this case, memory.

If you're going to offer a free trial, then you should not need payment information until the end of the trial. You could start sending out reminders to add the payment information towards the end of the trial, instead of an email with a cancellation button, and that would not be a dark pattern. Either practice is a means to the same end, but only the former eliminates the possibility of people paying for what they didn't intend to.

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Re:Mastercard will stop free trials from automatically billi... by goliatone on Thursday January 17, 2019 @11:22AM (#18932014)
You still need to send an email before the trial is about to go into paid mode
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Re:Mastercard will stop free trials from automatically billi... by hirundo on Thursday January 17, 2019 @11:28AM (#18932076)
That's fine. It looks like at least that plus an ongoing per-charge notice will be mandatory. As a user I'd want to disable them, but it sounds like that won't be an option. So I'd probably mark them as spam instead.
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