Amazon Sued By FTC For 'Handing' Prime Subscription To Users Without Knowledge

The FTC has said Amazon "tricked" users into signing up for its Prime subscription programme and intentionally made the cancellation process difficult.

The FTC has said Amazon "tricked" users into signing up for its Prime subscription.

Retail giant Amazon has been sued by the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) for allegedly duping “millions of users” by enrolling them in the Amazon Prime premium service without their knowledge and making it overly difficult to cancel. The FTC has said Amazon "tricked" users into signing up for its Prime subscription programme and intentionally made the cancellation process difficult.

According to the commission, the e-commerce giant has also violated the FTC Act and the Restore Online Shoppers’ Confidence Act by using so-called dark patterns, or deceptive design tactics meant to steer users toward a specific choice, to push consumers to enroll in Amazon Prime without their consent or knowledge, says a report by CNBC.

“Amazon tricked and trapped people into recurring subscriptions without their consent, not only frustrating users but also costing them significant money,” FTC Chair Lina Khan was quoted as saying in a statement.

Under Khan, the FTC continued a lawsuit against social networking Meta, arguing it cut off nascent competitors by buying Meta-owned Instagram and WhatsApp and sued to block Microsoft’s $69 billion deal for video game publisher Activision Blizzard.

The lawsuit was filed in the US District Court in the Western District of Washington. According to the complaint, Amazon "has knowingly duped millions of consumers into unknowingly enrolling in Amazon Prime".

Amazon users were prompted to "click buttons" that signed them up for Prime without their knowledge or consent. The company apparently made the process to cancel Amazon Prime difficult which deterred customers from doing so and confused them. The retail giant was aware of these issues and did not take any steps to address them until it was aware of an FTC investigation, says a report by Axios.