FTC sues Amazon for ‘deceptive’ subscription sign-up and cancellation processes

The Federal Trade Commission has sued Amazon, accusing the online retail giant of using deceptive practices that make canceling subscriptions to its Prime product intentionally difficult for consumers. The FTC said Amazon used “manipulative, coercive or deceptive user-interface designs known as ‘dark patterns’ to trick consumers into enrolling in automatically renewing Prime subscriptions,” and it’s seeking civil penalties and a permanent injunction to prevent future violations. Specifically, the complaint said that consumers who attempted to cancel Prime were faced with multiple steps to accomplish the task of canceling. Consumers had to first locate the cancellation flow, which Amazon made difficult to do. They were subsequently directed to multiple pages that