FTC claims Amazon tricked millions into Prime subscriptions

“Amazon tricked and trapped people into recurring subscriptions without their consent, not only frustrating users but also costing them significant money,” FTC Chair Lina Khan said in a statement.

Customers pay $139 a year for prime, which includes free, expedited shipping for purchases, video streaming and other services. This is the FTC’s third legal action against Amazon in less than a month. At the end of May the company agreed to pay more than $30 million toinvolving its Ring camera and Alexa for kids products. The agency hasof the company, including a sprawling antitrust probe of its retail business and its acquisition of robot vacuum maker iRobot.

Dark patterns, sometimes known as deceptive designs, are meant to trick people into making choices that they might not have under different circumstances. An example would be a request for data collection where the button to opt-in would be large and bolded while the choice to opt-out would be obscured.

“Amazon leadership slowed or rejected changes that would’ve made it easier for users to cancel Prime because those changes adversely affected Amazon’s bottom line,” the agency said in a statement.

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FTC accuses Amazon of enrolling consumers into Prime without consent and making it hard to cancelThe Federal Trade Commission sued Amazon on Wednesday for what it called a years-long effort to enroll consumers without consent into its Prime program and making it difficult for them to cancel their subscriptions. In a complaint filed in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Washington, the agency accused Amazon of using deceptive designs, known as “dark patterns,” to deceive consumers into enrolling in the program. It also alleged the company’s leadership slowed or rejected changes that made canceling the subscription easier. Amazon did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
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