The FTC said in its complaint that Amazon used “manipulative, coercive, or deceptive user interface designs, known as ‘dark patterns,’ to trick consumers into signing up for automatically renewing Prime subscriptions.”
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“Amazon tricked and tricked people into signing up for Amazon Prime without their consent, causing not only frustration but also significant loss of money for consumers,” FTC Chairwoman Lina Khan said in a statement.
Amazon called the FTC’s claims “false,” saying that canceling Prime memberships was “clear and simple.” The company said the regulator announced the case without any notice to it.
The lawsuit is the latest in a series of attacks against Big Tech companies like Amazon, Google and Meta by the FTC and other antitrust regulators in Washington, seeking to crack down on anticompetitive or anti-consumer business practices.
When it was first introduced in 2005, Amazon Prime cost $79 a year. The Prime service has expanded over the years to include a digital video library. The cost has also increased, to $139 a year in the US.
The FTC contacted Amazon about “nonconsensual Prime signups.” However, the company’s leadership “intentionally delayed, evaded, and even failed to make changes to the user experience that would have reduced nonconsensual signups and negatively impacted Amazon’s profits,” the complaint said.
Prime subscription fees account for $25 billion in Amazon’s annual revenue, according to the complaint. Last year, the company’s revenue was $514 billion. Amazon Prime users in the U.S. will reach 174.9 million this year, or about 66% of the population, according to Insider Intelligence.
Previously, when consumers wanted to cancel Prime, they had to “navigate through four pages, six clicks, 15 options,” whereas signing up for Prime only required one or two clicks. The FTC said Amazon “significantly modified” the Prime cancellation process for some users before the lawsuit.
This is the second lawsuit the FTC has filed against Amazon in as many months. In May, the company agreed to pay $25 million to settle a lawsuit filed by the FTC and the U.S. Department of Justice that accused the company of violating children's privacy laws.
Regulators have accused Amazon of indefinitely storing children's audio recordings using its Alexa voice assistant.
Hoang Ton (according to FT)
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