The Federal Trade Commission on Wednesday sued Amazon for allegedly tricking millions of customers into its Prime program, then ‘trapping’ them into the subscription service by making it prohibitively difficult to cancel.
The heavily redacted suit, filed in a U.S. District Court in Seattle, is available here. The FTC also issued a press release on the matter Wednesday morning.
In its complaint, the FTC said Amazon has used so-called dark patterns to lure customers into the Prime program, which offers members subsidized shipping on purchased goods, not to mention the Amazon Prime Video subscription-VOD smorgasbord.
Dark patterns are user interface schemes designed to take advantage of inherent psychological biases and lead users toward making certain choices.
"During Amazon’s online checkout process, consumers were faced with numerous opportunities to subscribe to Amazon Prime at $14.99/month," the FTC said in its press release. "In many cases, the option to purchase items on Amazon without subscribing to Prime was more difficult for consumers to locate."
Once enrolled in a recurring Prime subscription, Amazon made it exceedingly difficult to cancel the service. Not only was finding where to start the cancellation process challenging, but users are also faced with numerous redirects and confusing follow-up steps.
“Amazon tricked and trapped people into recurring subscriptions without their consent, not only frustrating users but also costing them significant money,” FTC chair Lina M. Khan said in a statement. “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.”
For her part, Kahn achieved much of her profile after she penned a 2017 legal paper titled "Amazon's Antitrust Paradox."
Meanwhile, the FTC is cracking down more broadly on dark pattern usage by large internet companies. For example, Fortnite maker Epic Games agreed in December to pay $520 million to settle an FTC suit against it for allegedly tricking users into buying in-game trinkets.
