Last summer the Federal Trade Commission filed a complaint against Amazon.com, Inc. for an alleged “years-long effort to enroll consumers into its Prime program without their consent,” and this week, a judge rejected Amazon’s request for the suit to be dismissed.
According to Reuters, U.S. District Judge John Chun rejected the online retail giant’s request Tuesday in Seattle, Wash. Amazon had urged Chun to dismiss the suit on the grounds that it disclosed key terms about the Prime program and that the FTC’s allegations included “undefined concepts” related to potentially manipulative website designs.
“Specifically, Amazon used manipulative, coercive, or deceptive user-interface designs known as ‘dark patterns’ to trick consumers into enrolling in automatically-renewing Prime subscriptions,” explained an FTC press release from last June. Per a September 2022 report from the FTC, companies were increasingly using complicated design patterns on their websites to trick users. This use constitutes a violation of the FTC Act, and the Restore Online Shoppers’ Confidence Act.
Other examples of confusing or manipulative website design included making the option to checkout without signing up for prime more difficult to find than the option that included subscribing to Prime. Sometimes, the button that included a subscription to Prime did not clearly state that it would, the FTC said.
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In addition to accusing Amazon of enrolling consumers in Prime (a paid perks program that costs $14.99 per month), the FTC said that the company also made it difficult to cancel their subscriptions. Once users were signed up for Prime and tried to cancel, the process to end their membership was actually designed to stop them from doing so. Some reporting about the process in the media even noted that Amazon used the term ‘Iliad’ to describe the process, an allusion to Homer’s epic poem.
“Amazon leadership slowed or rejected changes that would’ve made it easier for users to cancel Prime because those changes adversely affected Amazon’s bottom line,” said the FTC. Lina M. Khan, chair of the FTC, argued that the “manipulative tactics harm consumers and law-abiding businesses alike,” and cost site users money.
Per Reuters’ report, Amazon said Wednesday that the “FTC’s claims are false on the facts and the law... We look forward to the opportunity to present the real facts in the case.”
According to the outlet, the suit is part of a Biden-administration crackdown on big companies. It also said a 10-day non-jury trial in the case is scheduled for next February.
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