The Federal Trade Commission filed a complaint against Amazon Wednesday, alleging the company “duped millions of consumers into unknowingly enrolling in Amazon Prime,” and used so-called dark patterns to sabotage attempts to cancel those subscriptions.
“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, in a press release. “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.”
According to the FTC, Amazon executives made a conscious choice to create these problems and ignored potential fixes that would help consumers. Amazon did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
As you work through the checkout process on Amazon, the company hits you with multiple opportunities to sign up for a recurring Prime subscription. The FTC says Amazon even used a purchase button that automatically triggered a Prime subscription without properly disclosing it to consumers.
Spurned consumers who realized they were unwittingly paying the $14.99 a month prime subscription faced an uphill battle when they tried to cancel it, according to the suit. Leaked data showed that cancellations dropped 14% after Amazon intentionally complicated the process in 2017, according to a report in Insider. Internally, the company was obvious about its intentions, per the report. Amazon called its new anti-cancellation process “Project Iliad,” referencing the 24-book, 16,000 line Greek epic about the endless frustrations of the Trojan War.
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Source: Gizmodo