The administrator of Trump continues Amazon for having deceived people in privileged subscriptions. Here’s how it could affect you

The Federal Trade Commission launches Amazon in court this week about the Moneymaker Prime Subscription Program of the Technology Giant.

In a trial that should last next month, the FTC says that Amazon has prompted millions of customers to register for a premium subscription, then made said subscription very difficult.

“Millions of consumers have accidentally signed up for premium without knowledge or consent, but Amazon has refused to solve this known problem, described internally by employees as” tacit cancer “because clarity adjustments would lead to a drop in subscribers,” the FTC wrote in a court posting earlier this month.

“Likewise, the premium cancellation flow, known internally as” Iliad “, is a Labyrinthian mechanism which, according to defendants, arouses consumers to cancel or induce consumers thinking that they have managed to cancel Prime when they have not done so,” said the FTC.

The trial was filed two years ago under the FTC of the Biden era, then led by Big Tech Hawk Lina Khan. It will be Amazon’s first force majeure with the FTC, but there is already a second on the horizon. The FTC delivered its first antitrust costs separately to Amazon two years ago, and the test for this should start at the beginning of 2027.

Prime is a huge money manufacturer for Amazon. The technology giant made more than $ 44 billion just subscriptions last year. This number includes other subscription services under Amazon, such as audio books and music streaming, but Prime is the main source. In addition to the billions of dollars in subscription income, privileged users also generate a lot of money for Amazon in online purchases.

Details of the case

The FTC argues that Amazon has buried terms of prices renewal and the subscription in small characters when users register for a free trial, and includes a confusing language that encourages people to accidentally register for an Amazon Prime trial. The confusing language would include tempting users with free delivery when they left, not clarifying enough that the click on this link registered them on a free Amazon trial which is automatically renewed after 30 days.

Then, when users wish to cancel their main subscriptions, Amazon makes them go through a process in several stages which allegedly designed to convince them not to cancel. The process would be called internally as “the Iliad”, named after the former Greek epic representing the Trojan War of a decade, famous for its great deception with the Trojan horse. Very on the nose.

I went through this cancellation process myself, and it’s long. This makes you jump through many pages, trying you with exclusive offers and television programs that you can only watch on the premium video.

Although I did not have the chance to see this particular attempt, the FTC deposit affirms that in a version of the many web pages that show you before I could cancel you, consumers were welcomed by a banner message that said “Thank you for being a member with us. Look at your trip with Prime”, a few pages before the cancellation were confirmed and final. The FTC says who might prematurely believe that their membership is canceled and that they have nothing else.

These practices, according to the FTC, violate article 5 of the FTC Act, which prohibits “unfair” trade practices as unauthorized billing. They go against the Restore Online Shoppers Confidence Act, also known as Rosca, who says that companies should clearly disclose all terms to consumers before obtaining their billing information, obtain an explicit consent before undergoing fees and facilitate cancellation.

Amazon is not the only defendant

Amazon is not the only defendant in the case. Three managers from Amazon – Jamil Ghani, Neil Lindsay and Russell Grandinetti – are all named individual defendants. The FTC allegates that the Vice-President of Prime, Jamil Ghani, and the main vice-president of Amazon Health Services, Neil Lindsay, approved clarity improvements to the premium registration flow, but immediately returned them when the management saw a drop in the prime registration. The main vice-president of Amazon’s international consumers, Russell Grandinetti, is accused of rejected internal concerns about the issue of involuntary inscriptions in favor of the increasing basis of subscribers.

The trial will start with the opening arguments on Tuesday. But the government already had its first victory. Judge John H. Chun of the American District Court for the Washington Washington District awarded the FTC a preliminary victory last week when he concluded that Lindsay and Ghani are automatically considered to be responsible if the Tribunal Amazon Coupable.

“The main thing is that neither Amazon nor the individual defendants did something wrong – we remain convinced that the facts show that these leaders have acted properly and we have always put customers first,” a spokesman for Amazon in Gizmodo told.

‘Dark patterns’

“How do you encourage someone to register for a service?” You can ask. The FTC affirms that Amazon does by intelligently designed design choices that confuse customers to register for subscriptions, or to make the cancellation processes sufficiently confused so that you do not realize that you have not yet canceled the members.

These misleading design techniques are called “dark models” and are used by many online platforms to manipulate behavior. It is when the platforms make users carefully and knowingly to do what they want them to do, whether it is to agree to join a free trial for Amazon Prime or to say yes to a Cookie consent form which wishes to sell your data to a third party.

Dark patterns are more and more examined. The European Union is also preparing to respond to these concerns under the Digital Equity Act next year.

Implications beyond Amazon

Amazon is not the first subscription service to use an exhausting members’ cancellation process which only has a notorious ancient war. But it is, supports the FTC, one of the greatest subscription services to do so. If the court settles in favor of the FTC in this case, it could trigger a generalized chain reaction which affects the way other subscription services lead their business.

Everything follows from the now focused combat to “click to cancel” the standard. Directed by former Commissioner Lina Khan, the FTC wanted to demand that all companies facilitate the cancellation of the subscription to a single click. Under the Trump administration, this rule was completely struck.