Online services and applications will not be able to automatically charge a subscription fee from bank cards that the user has unlinked from their personal account starting from March 1. This was announced by Igor Antropenko, a member of the State Duma Committee on Industry and Trade.
The regulation protects users from accidental debits and financial abuses. It removes responsibility from citizens if they forget to cancel their subscription and prevents irrelevant payments.
The law obliges sellers of digital subscriptions to accept a client's refusal to use saved bank account details or electronic means of payment. The refusal can be submitted in electronic form in the personal account.
Antropenko emphasized that automatic debits for forgotten subscriptions amounting to millions of rubles occur regularly nationwide. According to his estimate, every fourth Russian uses online services where such schemes operate.
Thus, Internet services are obliged to develop functionality for unlinking cards and stopping automatic debits. Violation of the law may lead to administrative liability for the seller of the digital subscription.