FTC says Amazon tricked millions into joining Prime

The Federal Trade Commission has sued Amazon.com, alleging that it used deceptive interface designs to trick millions into joining its Prime membership program. “Amazon used manipulative, coercive, or deceptive user-interface designs known as ‘dark patterns’ to trick consumers into enrolling in automatically-renewing Prime subscriptions,” according to the FTC. Amazon said the federal agency’s claims were “false on the facts and the law.”

FTC Amazon Prime Dispute Begins 

The FTC has gone on to state that Amazon has used various methods to prevent subscribed users from canceling their memberships.

With more strictness than before, the FTC makes another bold move stringently to prevent unfair business practices, especially ones that involve psychological tricks.

This FTC Amazon lawsuit targets a critical area within the etailer’s business model. Prime helps generate billions of dollars in revenue from subscription plans that incentivize consumers from staying locked into purchasing products from Amazon instead of competitors, whenever possible.

According to CCN, Amazon responded to the lawsuit by stating the FTC’s claims were false on different accounts.

The e-commerce company also stated that they, “took some steps in April, in response to FTC pressure, to simplify users’ ability to cancel their Prime subscriptions but before then had denied customers the ability to easily cancel their Prime subscriptions online.”

Amazon has also recently settled two prior FTC complaints regarding the Alexa and Ring products. The Amazon FTC feud will be covered in the future by RetailWire, so stay up to date with our news.

For more information about Amazon layoffs, be sure to check out our blog post.