It's easy to sign up for online apps like Uber but canceling is another story.
"They want to keep your information at all costs," said Kim Gough with Privacy Rights Clearinghouse. "So they're not going to make the process necessarily easy for you to do it."
In Uber's case, finding the cancellation policy requires digging through the fine print on the website. You won't find it in Terms and Conditions, but in a second level down navigation in the Privacy Policy.
"You have to click through several links, you have to read through 10 pages so they could do a better job of disclosing that information right up front," said Evan Velasquez with the Identity Theft Resource Center.
But both Velasquez and Gough say practices like this are not unusual. Many apps, websites, memberships and online contracts inundate readers with blocks of legal language. Yet if someone clicks "I Agree" it's as if you signed paper on a lawyer's desk.
Gough said you need to read the Terms of Use and the Privacy Policy of companies before you sign up. But she acknowledges that few people do that.
Also, websites and retail businesses alike often create databases on their customers that include names, emails and credit card information. But that information is often difficult to find.
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"It would be safe to say that every time you give that number out, it's being retained," said Velasquez.
And while many consumers are not aware of policies like this, Gough said the companies are most likely doing nothing illegal.
