Autorenewal lurks in Spyware Doctor

As we recently saw, automatic subscription renewals seem to have become de rigueur for antivirus software vendors. But one reader recently discovered that the practice is creeping into the anti-spyware category as well.

“Should I be outraged or not?” the reader headed his message to me. “I purchased copies of PC Tools’ Spyware Doctor several years ago, and have been satisfied with it up until last week. Instead of merely sending me a reminder to renew my one-year subscription, PC Tools took the liberty of renewing it for me and charging my credit card.”

If the reader had “agreed” to the renewal in a PC Tools EULA, he wasn’t aware of it. “To my knowledge, I had never been asked to agree to an autorenewal. In fact, I would need to sign up for an account on the PC Tools website in order to change my renewal preferences. And if my e-mail address had changed in the past year, I would not have known what this strange charge was on my credit card bill, if indeed I’d even have noticed it at all. Even Symantec has not had the gall to stoop to this sort of thing, at least not yet.”

“My initial reaction was one of subdued rage,” the reader wrote. “How dare a company just decide to charge my credit card for something I had never requested? Isn’t it theft? So I called to speak to American Express about it. The representative was far from sympathetic. He said that these autorenewals were ‘the norm’ now, and he saw no problem with what PC Tools had done, financially or ethically. The litmus test, he said, was whether or not it was a renewable subscription. His claim was: If it can be renewed, then the company always has the right to renew it via your credit card, even if you have not affirmed a willingness or desire for renewals, and even if the company has not requested your approval. In the end, he seemed quite exasperated with me for questioning the legitimacy of this charge.”

The reader liked the Spyware Doctor and would have renewed his subscription if PC Tools had just asked. “Actually, the price PC Tools charged me was quite reasonable, but I am done with Spyware Doctor and PC Tools, and have requested a refund.” In a follow-up e-mail the reader said he had indeed gotten the refund. “They have credited my account, so they have at least been responsive to my request to cancel. But now I need to find a new anti-spyware app.”

And, the reader wondered, how do you find out for sure which anti-spyware vendors don’t use autorenewal? And if they don’t now, how will you know when they start? “I realize that there are ways to prevent this sort of abuse, but am I just out of touch?” the reader concludes. ” Is it now an accepted business tactic to be able to charge someone’s credit card for a product they did not request, as long as the product is ‘renewable?’ And if so, will utility companies, phone companies, and insurance companies start charging my credit card automatically, instead of asking my permission as they do today?”

So what do you think — does the reader have the right to be outraged at PC Tools for its automatically renewing his subscription? Or, like the credit card rep told him, should he just now accept the fact that this is the norm? Post your comments below or write me at Foster@gripe2ed.com.