The Senate began hearings yesterday about online businesses that use tactics that cause consumers to pay for and get services they don’t ask for, aren’t notified of (until the bills show up), and probably don’t want.
The Cliff Notes version? When you complete a purchase of something from the companies below, you get taken to a page offering additional sales. You have to accept or decline the choice before you are taken to a final confirmation page for your intended purchase. If you decline, you get your confirmation. If you accept, the site will automatically take all the personal information (including credit card data) that you’ve already given it, send it to 3rd-party vendors, and process the additional sales without asking for customer approval.
It’s a shady practice.
Wanna see some of the companies that do this?
The online travel and hotel-booking services on this list don’t surprise me, nor does Yahoo. eHarmony (famous for rejecting gays and “unattractive people”) shouldn’t surprise anyone. TimeLife should know better.
