Advance Consent Marketing

Background

Marketers rely heavily on a variety of sales arrangements that are based on consumers' advance consent to future events, such as billing at the end of a free trial period or automatic renewal of a membership program and automatic re-shipment of consumables. State and federal regulatory activity threaten the effectiveness and viability of these types of promotions potentially resulting in a loss of convenience for consumers as well as unnecessarily burden industry with increased costs associated with compliance.

ERA believes that marketing and sales techniques involving continuity programs, automatic renewals, trial offers, or pre-notification plans - all of which are arrangements based on a consumer's "advance consent" - are long standing and legitimate practices that benefit consumers and business alike. ERA also believes that current law provides an adequate infrastructure to protect consumers from rouge companies abusing Advance Consent Marketing Practices and that current industry self-regulation programs continue to provide responsible marketers the mechanism to assure that consumers' rights are honored.