FTC Sues Amazon for Tricking Users into Subscribing to Prime

From the article:

> The lawsuit, filed in U.S. District Court for the Western District of Washington, argued that Amazon had “duped millions of consumers” into enrolling in Prime by using “manipulative, coercive or deceptive” design tactics on its website known as “dark patterns.” And when consumers wanted to cancel, Amazon “knowingly complicated” the process with byzantine procedures.

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> On Wednesday, the F.T.C. said that Amazon had made it particularly difficult to purchase a product in its store without also subscribing to Prime while checking out. In one example, it said the company had used “repetition and color” to push customers’ focus to Prime’s promise of free shipping and away from the service’s price, leading some to subscribe to Prime without “informed consent.”

> The agency also said Amazon made it hard to find the page that allowed consumers to cancel the service. Once they found it, the company bombarded them with offers intended to change their mind. The lawsuit said that Amazon had named the process for canceling Prime after the Iliad, the lengthy Greek epic poem that recounts the Trojan War.