Click to Cancel rule<\/a>, which takes effect Oct. 1.<\/p>\nThe regulation will require businesses to let customers cancel recurring subscriptions as easily and through the same method they used to enroll. It also bars businesses from hanging up on customers seeking to cancel, providing false or obscured instructions or unreasonably delaying a cancellation request.<\/p>\n
Businesses found to have violated the rule would be liable for charges imposed after a customer\u2019s first attempt to cancel, with civil penalties reaching $3,500 for a third or subsequent violation.<\/p>\n
Asked whether the portal would be operating when the rule takes effect Oct. 1, Gelobter replied, \u201cAbsolutely.\u201d\n<\/p>\n
But the Office of Technology and Innovation had not yet begun the project\u2019s discovery phase or determined what the finished portal would look like when Gelobter spoke Tuesday.<\/p>\n
She said the crew will first define the problem it is trying to solve, conduct research with New Yorkers and establish measurable criteria for success. The team is not entering the project with a predetermined design or assuming technology will provide the entire solution, she said.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe don\u2019t come into these projects presuming we know what the right answer is,\u201d Gelobter said.\n<\/p>\n
Mamdani said when he announced the crews that the portal would allow New Yorkers to file complaints against companies accused of trapping customers in difficult-to-cancel subscriptions. He said it would also create a database City Hall could use to hold violators accountable.<\/p>\n
Lorelei Salas, who led DCWP under former Mayor Bill de Blasio and later served as supervision director at the federal Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, told amNewYork the portal would be most useful if it did more than collect individual reports.<\/p>\n
The city should design the system so investigators can search for patterns, identify businesses drawing large numbers of complaints and direct enforcement resources toward repeat offenders, Salas said.<\/p>\n
She also said the city should consider making company names and the substance of complaints publicly searchable while protecting complainants\u2019 personal information. Public disclosure could encourage businesses to address complaints voluntarily and allow other enforcement agencies to identify possible violations, she said.<\/p>\n
Salas surmised that a basic public-facing portal could realistically be ready by Oct. 1 if the city hires quickly, though she was less certain that more advanced back-end functions for organizing data and supporting enforcement could be completed by then.<\/p>\n
The larger question, she said, is whether DCWP will have enough investigators and other staff ready to act on complaints once they begin arriving.\n<\/p>\n
DCWP\u2019s adopted fiscal 2027 budget authorizes 560 full-time positions, 77 more than were included in its modified fiscal 2026 budget. That includes 314 positions in licensing and enforcement, an increase of 54.<\/p>\n
But the budget does not specify how many of those positions are currently filled, how many will handle consumer complaints or how many will be assigned to Click to Cancel enforcement. The licensing and enforcement unit also covers business licensing, labor-law enforcement, computer services, auditing and legal and consumer services.<\/p>\n
Salas said the city should eventually publish figures showing how many complaints are filed and resolved, how much money is returned to consumers, how quickly cases are closed and how often businesses comply after being notified of a complaint.<\/p>\n
A system that encourages companies to resolve disputes voluntarily could allow DCWP to focus its investigative resources on businesses that refuse to comply or repeatedly draw complaints, she said.<\/p>\n
City Hall previously said a Roosevelt Institute analysis estimated that the Click to Cancel rule could save New Yorkers between $21.5 million and $162.5 million annually, along with at least 600,000 hours of time.<\/p>\n
The other four PIT Crew projects have not been announced.\n<\/p>\n
Gelobter said commissioners across city government have already approached OTI with problems they want the teams to address. Projects will be selected based on their reach, potential effect on residents, alignment with the administration\u2019s priorities and whether the participating agency is prepared to work closely with the technologists.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m not sure I can name an agency that hasn\u2019t reached out yet,\u201d she said.\n<\/p>\n
The crews are intended to test ideas quickly before successful products are expanded or handed off to another OTI team or the participating agency for long-term operation, Gelobter said. The Rockefeller-supported crew will operate under the same model as the others, with its workers also rotating among projects.<\/p>\n
The surge in applications shows City Hall has no shortage of interest in Mamdani\u2019s experiment. The first real test comes Oct. 1, when the administration says its first product will be ready for New Yorkers to use.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The administration plans to hire 30 full-time employees across four crews using $5.24 million in baselined city funding.…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":951726,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[5122],"tags":[5229,379005,383178,89735,241476,225069,252701,405,403,383179,383180,5226,5225,5228,5227,383181,225070,383182,383183,383184,383185,67,586,132,5230,68,2969,5301],"class_list":["post-951725","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-york","tag-america","tag-civic-technology","tag-click-to-cancel-rule","tag-consumer-protection","tag-department-of-consumer-and-worker-protection","tag-digital-government","tag-lisa-gelobter","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-new-york-city-mayors-office","tag-new-york-city-technology","tag-newyork","tag-newyorkcity","tag-ny","tag-nyc","tag-nyc-government-services","tag-office-of-technology-and-innovation","tag-pit-crews","tag-public-interest-technology-crews","tag-public-sector-innovation","tag-rockefeller-foundation","tag-united-states","tag-united-states-of-america","tag-unitedstates","tag-unitedstatesofamerica","tag-us","tag-usa","tag-zohran-mamdani"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":"Validation failed: Text character limit of 500 exceeded"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/951725","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=951725"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/951725\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/951726"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=951725"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=951725"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=951725"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/DSC_7060.jpg\" "\\"Mamdani\u2019s")
Lisa Gelobter, New York City\u2019s Chief Technology Officer and Commissioner of the Office of Technology & InnovationPhoto by Lloyd Mitchell<\/p>\n