As of: January 18, 2024, 3:33 p.m
By: Anna-Lena Kiegerl
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Online subscription providers must place the cancellation button on the website in an easily and immediately accessible manner.
This also means: Registration is not necessary to cancel.
Kassel – Online subscriptions are available in a wide variety of types and prices.
No matter whether it's films, series or music, you can take out a subscription for a lot of things.
Some people have multiple subscriptions at once, but some are becoming more and more expensive.
If you want to cancel a subscription, you simply have to do so, as the law stipulates.
A login should not be necessary for this.
This is what the Munich regional court decided after a lawsuit brought by the Federal Association of Consumer Organizations (vzbv) against Sky Deutschland Fernsehen GmbH & Co. KG.
Lawsuit against Sky: Registration required when canceling WOW subscription
According to vzbv, it is necessary to log in to the Sky streaming service WOW in order to cancel the subscription.
Both email address and password must be entered.
“The cancellation button is important: consumers must be able to cancel online contracts simply with a click of the mouse.
The legal requirements for providers are clear.
“You must not impose unnecessary hurdles on consumers,” said vzbv board member Ramona Pop. “If consumers first have to log in with an email and password, this represents an unnecessary and illegal hurdle that makes termination more difficult,” explains Pop.
Since July 2022, the following applies to paid internal subscriptions: A cancellation button must be immediately and easily accessible on the website.
Even though the “Cancel WOW subscription” button was on the page, it was neither immediately nor easily accessible due to the necessary registration.
A lawsuit was filed against Sky Deutschland, and it became clear that it must be possible to cancel online services without registering.
© Imago/Waldmüller
No password required: Cancellation of online subscriptions must also be possible without registering
As the regional court ruled, Sky's actions on the WOW website are unlawful.
Because: instead of requiring registration, the button should lead directly to the cancellation page.
In order to complete this, you should not need a password that may have already been forgotten.
Personal information such as name, date of birth or address should be sufficient.
In this case, the justification for the law is formulated unambiguously.
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