Negative option billing

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Negative option billing is a business practice in which goods or services are provided automatically, and the customer must either pay for the service or specifically decline it in advance of billing.

This is, for example, the model on which mail order book clubs are structured.

In Canada, Parliament outlawed the practice in 1996 after a public outcry the previous year when most cable television companies added a package of new specialty services to their lineups in this manner. This had previously been the standard manner of adding new channels to cable television service, but had not previously attracted the type of controversy that was raised by the 1995 channel launch.