Photographer: Thorsten Wagner/Bloomberg via Getty Images
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The U.S. Federal Trade Commission sued Wednesday amazonaccusing the dominant U.S. online retailer of deliberately deceiving millions of consumers into signing up for its main Prime program and “sabotaging” their attempts to cancel.
The agency alleges that Amazon used so-called dark patterns, or deceptively designed tactics designed to steer users toward specific choices, to force consumers to sign up for Prime without their consent, thereby violating the FTC Act and Restoring Online Shopping Investor Confidence Act.
“Amazon has defrauded and lured people into recurring subscriptions without their consent, which not only frustrated users, but also cost them significant amounts of money,” FTC Chair Lina Khan said in a statement.
Since March 2021, the FTC has been investigating the registration and cancellation process for Amazon’s Prime program. Tensions between Amazon and the FTC flared up when the agency sought to have CEO Andy Jassy and founder Jeff Bezos testify about the company’s Prime practices. Amazon argued that the request would be too onerous, but was rejected by the FTC.
Launched in 2005, the Prime program has grown into one of the world’s most popular subscription services, with more than 200 million members worldwide and billions of dollars in revenue for Amazon. It costs $139 a year and includes perks like free shipping and access to streaming content.
Representatives for Amazon did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The story is developing. Check for updates.