U.S. Federal Trade Commission Sues Amazon for Enrolling Consumers in Amazon Prime Without Consent & Sabotaging Attempts to Cancel

U.S. Federal Trade Commission Sues Amazon for Enrolling Consumers in Amazon Prime Without Consent & Sabotaging Attempts to Cancel

The U.S. Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has lodged a complaint against the e-commerce giant Amazon at the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Washington, alleging that the company has knowingly duped millions of consumers into unknowingly enrolling in Amazon Prime.

The FTC accused Amazon.com, Inc. for its years-long effort to enroll consumers into its Prime program without their consent while knowingly making it difficult for consumers to cancel their subscriptions to Prime.

FTC in its complaint contended that Amazon used manipulative, coercive, or deceptive user-interface designs known as ‘dark patterns’ to trick consumers into enrolling in automatically-renewing Prime subscriptions.

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

The complaint contains a number of allegations related to the company’s decision not to make changes to prevent nonconsensual enrolment in Prime and the difficulties consumers faced in attempting to unsubscribe from the service.

Specifically, the complaint charges that Amazon used so-called “dark patterns” to cause consumers to enrol in Prime without their consent, in violation of the FTC Act, and the Restore Online Shoppers’ Confidence Act.

The FTC highlighted that during Amazon’s online checkout process, consumers were faced with numerous opportunities to subscribe to Amazon Prime at $14.99 per month. In many cases, the option to purchase items on Amazon without subscribing to Prime was more difficult for consumers to locate. In some cases, the button presented to consumers to complete their transaction did not clearly state that in choosing that option they were also agreeing to join Prime for a recurring subscription.

The FTC has vehemently asserted that Amazon’ cancellation process is designed to deter consumers from successfully unsubscribing from Prime.

According to the complaint, Consumers who attempted to cancel Prime were faced with multiple steps to accomplish the task of cancelling. Consumers had to first locate the cancellation flow, which Amazon made difficult. Once they located the cancellation flow, they were redirected to multiple pages that presented several offers to continue the subscription at a discounted price, to simply turn off the auto-renew feature, or to decide not to cancel. Only after clicking through these pages could consumers finally cancel the service.

The complaint specifically flagged out that Amazon was aware of consumers being non-consensually enrolled and the complex and confusing process to cancel Prime that the company’s executives failed to take any meaningful steps to address the issues until they were aware of the FTC investigation.

Therefore, with aforesaid allegations, FTC proclaimed that Amazon attempted to delay and hinder the Commission’s investigation in multiple instances.