The Federal Trade Commission has formally reopened rulemaking around negative option marketing, seeking public comment on whether and how it should amend its current Negative Option Rule to address recurring-payment offers, consent, and cancellation obstacles. In the new Advance Notice of Proposed Rulemaking, the FTC says it wants input on amendments that would help consumers avoid recurring charges for products and services they did not intend to order and allow them to cancel without “unwarranted obstacles.” Comments will be due 30 days after the notice is published in the Federal Register.

For subscription businesses, the significance is not that a new federal rule has taken effect today. It has not. The news is that the FTC has moved from post-litigation cleanup into a fresh attempt to rebuild the record after the agency’s 2024 “click-to-cancel” rule was vacated by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit in July 2025. The court said the FTC failed to conduct the preliminary regulatory analysis required under Section 22 of the FTC Act. In February 2026, the FTC then formally restored the Negative Option Rule to the version that existed before the 2024 amendments took effect.

That distinction matters because the rule currently on the books is much narrower than the one the FTC adopted in 2024. The existing rule applies only to prenotification plans, the classic book-of-the-month style model in which a seller sends periodic notices and then ships and charges for goods unless the consumer declines the offer. The FTC’s own ANPRM says that current rule does not reach most modern negative option marketing, including continuity plans, automatic renewals, and free-trial conversion offers.

The new ANPRM makes clear that the Commission is not simply asking whether to revive the 2024 rule wholesale. Instead, it is requesting comment on the broader marketplace for negative option programs, the prevalence of practices that prevent consumers from understanding terms or giving express informed consent, and tactics that deter cancellation. It is also explicitly asking whether it should retain the current rule, adopt provisions from the vacated 2024 rule, use different provisions altogether, or pursue alternatives to regulation. The agency is encouraging commenters to submit market studies, economic data, and other empirical evidence.

The FTC is grounding that restart in both complaint volume and enforcement history. In its March 11 announcement, the agency said it has continued to receive thousands of complaints each year about negative options and related practices, including more than 100,000 complaints in the past five years. The ANPRM also points to enforcement actions since the earlier 2019 proceeding, naming cases involving Vonage, Amazon, Adobe, Uber, LA Fitness, and Instacart as evidence that unlawful negative option practices remain active in the market.

For operators, today’s announcement is best read as a regulatory restart, not a compliance deadline. The FTC is signaling that negative option practices remain a live federal priority, but it is doing so through a more deliberate process that puts costs, benefits, and market evidence front and center after the court loss. That is an inference from the agency’s ANPRM, its January submission of the draft ANPRM to OIRA for review, and its February restoration of the pre-2024 rule.

It also means the broader federal framework remains fragmented in the meantime. The ANPRM notes that, beyond the narrow current rule, the FTC still relies on Section 5 of the FTC Act, ROSCA, the Telemarketing Sales Rule, and other statutes to address different aspects of negative option marketing. ROSCA remains the main federal law aimed specifically at negative option marketing, but the FTC says it is limited to seller transactions effected on the internet.

INSIDER TAKE

This is an important development for subscription operators, but not because it changes the law overnight. It matters because it confirms the FTC is not backing away from negative option regulation after the 2025 court defeat. Instead, the agency is reopening the file with a process designed to collect a stronger factual record on how these offers work, where consumers encounter friction, and what any future rule should require.

Three operator implications stand out:

• No immediate new federal mandate arrived today. The legal baseline remains the restored pre-2024 rule, which covers prenotification plans, while broader subscription issues continue to be policed through other authorities and state laws.

• This comment window is a real opportunity for industry input. The FTC is expressly asking for evidence on market practices, consumer understanding, cancellation barriers, and the costs and benefits of possible approaches. Subscription businesses, vendors, and counsel that want a workable framework should treat this as a substantive record-building moment, not a symbolic one.

• Federal scrutiny of subscription flows is still very much alive. The ANPRM ties the restart to ongoing complaints and recent enforcement cases, which suggests disclosure design, consent capture, and cancellation operations will remain active risk areas even before any new rule is finalized.