Amazon is being sued by the US Federal Trade Commission for enrolling consumers in Amazon Prime without consent and sabotaging their attempts to cancel.
According to the complaint filed the FTC, “Amazon has knowingly duped millions of consumers into unknowingly enrolling in Amazon Prime. Specifically, Amazon used manipulative, coercive, or deceptive user-interface designs known as “dark patterns” to trick consumers into enrolling in automatically-renewing Prime subscriptions.”
Amazon Prime is a paid subscription service offered by Amazon, providing a range of benefits to its members. These include free and fast shipping on eligible items, access to streaming services like Prime Video and Prime Music, free e-books and magazines through Prime Reading, exclusive gaming benefits through Prime Gaming, an annual shopping event called Prime Day, unlimited photo storage with Prime Photos, try-before-you-buy options with Prime Wardrobe, and the convenience of ordering groceries and household items through Prime Pantry. Amazon Prime offers a comprehensive package of services for its subscribers, enhancing their shopping, entertainment, and convenience experiences.
The Prime membership currently costs $139 a year or $14.99 a month in the US and Prime membership fees account for $25 billion of the company’s annual revenue.
The complaint also stated that Amazon deliberately made the process of cancelling Prime memberships more challenging in order to discourage subscribers from ending their membership. The main objective of the Prime cancellation process was not to facilitate easy cancellations but rather to hinder them. Amazon’s leadership intentionally impeded or rejected changes that would have simplified the cancellation process, as these modifications would have had negative financial implications for the company.
“Amazon tricked and trapped people into recurring subscriptions without their consent, not only frustrating users but also costing them significant money,” said FTC Chair Lina M. Khan. “These manipulative tactics harm consumers and law-abiding businesses alike. The FTC will continue to vigorously protect Americans from “dark patterns” and other unfair or deceptive practices in digital markets.”
In response to the complaint, Amazon said “The truth is that customers love Prime, and by design we make it clear and simple for customers to both sign up for or cancel their Prime membership.”
“As with all our products and services, we continually listen to customer feedback and look for ways to improve the customer experience, and we look forward to the facts becoming clear as this case plays out.”
Amazon added it finds “it concerning that the FTC announced this lawsuit without notice to us, in the midst of our discussions with FTC staff members to ensure they understand the facts, context, and legal issues, and before we were able to have a dialog with the commissioners themselves.”
Amazon recently agreed to pay more than $30 million in fines to settle FTC’s allegations of privacy violations involving its voice assistant Alexa and doorbell camera Ring.
