[f272529]

“Tough to cancel subscriptions” and “not tough to cancel subscriptions” are both subsets of “all subscriptions”.

If the FTC has their way and the rules are effective, “tough to cancel subscriptions” no longer exist, and any subscriptions that previously belonged to that set now exist in the “not tough to cancel subscriptions” set.

Effectively banning them.

That’s how I interpret the title.

[lax4ever]

Which I believe actually helps to illustrate my point. The issue the FTC appears to have (and this comes from more than just this article) is with the cancellation process and not the subscription itself. The subscription is far more than just the cancellation process, just as a hard to find book is more than just its ease of acquisition. The enrollment (and if the FTC has their way, cancellation) processes of subscriptions are such a minor attribute to the subscriptions themselves that defining them by that attribute alone in an article headline seems like poor authorship.

Is there some measure of semantics involved here? Quite probably, but then I say that in the world of professional writing and journalism I would expect a higher level of aptitude and proficiency. Being able to write headlines or article titles that remove as much of the semantic fuel as possible is, I believe, not an unreasonable request (or even requirement) for such professions, unless that is what the author is trying to achieve.