[markstos]

IANAL, but if the page is used to opt-out of marketing emails, then yes, Visa is in violation the US CAN-SPAM act, which requires promptly processing opt-out requests.

https://www.ftc.gov/business-guidance/resources/can-spam-act...

As long as the opt-out page is broken, they should not be sending out marketing emails and could be open to a class-action lawsuit from people they email with no ability to opt-out.

[LukeShu]

> could be open to a class-action lawsuit from people they email with no ability to opt-out.

CAN-SPAM does not grant standing to individuals. The only recourse individuals have under CAN-SPAM is to report the violation to the FTC and hope the FTC does something about it.

[manquer]

Do individuals have standing against FTC if they don't action ?

Lack of FTC action is causing you material harm , or is there immunity against FTC as well?

[NaturalPhallacy]

Anecdotal, but the FTC has teeth.

I noticed I was getting billed by AT&T for South Carolina taxes when I'd been living in Oregon for 3 years. Literally hadn't left the state of Oregon since I'd arrived.

I added up the fees in a spreadsheet and it came out to $51. I called AT&T and fought with their customer support who offered me "as a one time courtesy refund $25" and escalating to a manager wouldn't change that.

I submitted a complaint to the FTC, and not long after I got multiple calls and voicemails from AT&T "Executive Customer Service" or something, and when I finally took the call they breathlessly offered me a full refund for the exact amount right up front with no haggling.

It was remarkable.

Can you believe they called ME to fix their fuckup? And then paid me?

Could you imagine if that was the level of customer service you always got?

So out of sheer loyalty I immediately switched to Ting and have saved thousands of dollars since.

[jay_kyburz]

I was once having problem with my Bank, and instead of going into the branch _again_, I used a form on the website to log a complaint. OMG, I've never seen such good customer service!

My guess is the number of complaints resolved is tied to somebodies bonus.

[ryanhuff]

It may be that complaints submitted over the bank website are handled by a different (more responsive) team than complaints made at the branch.

[Meph504]

A lot of times, when it comes to business like this, in person complaints go into the ether, but the online complaints are recorded and play a part in performance metrics, or hit corp response team rather than branch.

[rootusrootus]

> Do individuals have standing against FTC if they don't action ?

You can petition them, certainly. Individuals and business are not able to sue the FTC.

[iudqnolq]

It's complicated, but under certain circumstances you can sue agencies for not doing something. It depends on the specific laws governing the specific agency and how you've been harmed by the inaction. Broadly speaking, the Administrative Procedures Act required agencies to have procedurally fair processes. If you're concretely harmed by an agency's inaction and you can show they didn't follow the correct processes, you can sometimes win.

[tomrod]

Why can't you sue the FTC?

[NaturalPhallacy]

Anybody can sue anybody. Winning though...

[nerdponx]

In general you can't sue the federal government.

[hoppyhoppy2]

>if the page is used to opt-out of marketing emails

Though I can't access it, I don't think that's what it's for. I believe it's for opting out of having your credit-card purchase history used for marketing purposes (i.e. sold to other companies, not for Visa itself to send you marketing emails).

>U.S. cardholders may opt out of Visa using their card transaction data for VAS, a suite of aggregated data products in the US.

(from the first result on https://www.google.com/search?channel=fs&q=visa+marketing+re... , which points to the same subdomain on visa.com)

[JacobThreeThree]

Yeah, this opt-out is clearly not related to the sending of marketing emails.

[codingdave]

> with no ability to opt-out.

That is the key. Does the web page being down mean that there is no way to opt out? Or is it just more difficult? The page you linked says: "Give a return email address or another easy Internet-based way to allow people to communicate their choice to you." Take note of the "or" in that statement.

So as long as they check replies within 10 days, they seem to be OK. If they fail to do so, maybe there is a problem. FWIW, I'm in agreement that this link being down is not good. But there is not enough info to hazard even guessing whether this is a violation of law.

[playpause]

Seems unlikely every marketing email Visa sent during this outage was sent from an actual, valid email address with an inbox. Isn’t that pretty unusual for marketing emails? They’re usually from something like no-spam@domain.

[codingdave]

Agreed. I'm not saying they are in the clear, I'm saying that neither do we have enough information to declare that they definitely broke laws - the law being cited contained both flexibility and ambiguity and it would take some legal research and knowledge to know more.

(And now that I think of it, we aren't even citing the law, we are talking about a summary of the law that is posted online.)

[aidenn0]

IANAL as well; #6 says that no information other than an e-mail address is required to opt-out, but when I was presented with a login-page for an unsubscribe, my research indicated that it's not cut-and-dry that requiring a login is banned by CAN-SPAM.

[fay59]

CAN-SPAM does not create a private right of action. I have generally no idea what I’m talking about when it comes to legal stuff but I think this means only the government can sue them over it.

[dillondoyle]

I think the CA law might have more teeth to allow for individual action? e.g. if they don't respond to data deletion requests.