The FTC believes the giant used manipulation techniques, as well as making it difficult to cancel the service
A Federal Trade Commission (FTC)the agency responsible for trade regulation and consumer protection in the United States, sued the amazon for allegedly getting millions of customers to subscribe to the benefits service Amazon Prime without your consent and thwart attempts to unsubscribe.
The FTC accuses the company of implementing manipulative and coercive interfaces on its website and apps, known as “dark models“, to confuse users into signing up for auto-renewing subscriptions, according to a statement published on Wednesday 21.
Amazon has given consumers who have purchased products on the site multiple opportunities to subscribe to Prime $14.99 per month and, on some occasions, it wasn’t clear that a button that completed a purchase also constituted an auto-renewable subscription to the service, according to the FTC. The agency also says Prime’s cancellation process isn’t designed to allow consumers to terminate their membership, but rather to prevent it.
The customer first had to figure out where to unsubscribe, and from there they were redirected to different pages with offers to continue with the service at a discount, turn off auto-renewal, or opt out of unsubscribing, the FTC explains. Only after clicking on all these pages was it possible to unsubscribe, the statement said.
The FTC cites a report by Business Insider which revealed that Amazon was internally using the term “Iliad” to refer to the erasure process — presumably an allusion to Homer’s lengthy Ancient Greek poem, nearly 16,000 lines long, about the Trojan War.
The indictment also points out that Amazon “was aware of consumers signing up without consent” to Prime and “the complex and confusing process to unsubscribe. The FTC says company executives failed to take meaningful action to sort things out until they were aware of the investigation, and attempted in several cases to delay and obstruct the Commission’s investigation.
Amazon responds
Amazon has denied allegations by the FTC that the company manipulated customers into subscribing to the Amazon Prime service and took action to make cancellations difficult.
“By design, we’ve made it clear and simple for customers to sign up for or cancel their Prime membership,” said a company spokesperson, adding that Amazon was “concerned that the FTC announced the process without notifying us, in the midst of our discussions with FTC staff members to make sure they understand the facts, context and legal issues, and before we could have a dialogue with the commissioners themselves.”
“We look forward to trying our case in court,” the spokesman said. /DOW JONES NEWWIRES.
Source: Terra
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