Amazon trapped millions into hard-to-cancel Prime memberships

The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) says Amazon allegedly used dark patterns to trick millions of users into enrolling in its Prime program and trapping them by making it as difficult as possible to cancel the automatically-renewing subscriptions.

In the complaint, the FTC says Amazon's deceptive techniques manipulated consumers into signing up for Prime subscriptions without even knowing it, violating both the Restore Online Shoppers' Confidence Act and the FTC Act.

The company allegedly employed dark patterns throughout the online checkout and subscription canceling processes, consistently prompting customers to subscribe to Amazon Prime for $14.99 per month while at the same time making the option to complete the transaction without enrolling into Prime proceed challenging to locate. 

According to FTC Chair Lina Khan, "Amazon tricked and trapped people into recurring subscriptions without their consent, frustrating users and costing them significant money."

These deceptive practises hurt both law-abiding firms and consumers. 'Dark patterns' and other unfair or misleading practises in digital markets will continue to be fiercely avoided by Americans according to the FTC.

In order to resolve charges of privacy infringement related to the operation of its Alexa virtual assistant and Ring video doorbell services, Amazon will also be required to pay $30 million in fines.

In May, the FTC charged Amazon's Ring home security camera division for illegally spying on its users and failing to prevent hackers from taking over the cameras.

Amazon was accused of breaking the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act by the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) and the FTC for refusing to erase voice recordings and geolocation data upon parental request.

"As part of the settlement, we agreed to make a small modification to our already strong practises, and will remove child profiles that have been inactive for more than 18 months, unless a parent or guardian chooses to keep them," Amazon said to BleepingComputer in May.

When approached by BleepingComputer earlier today regarding the FTC's complaint regarding Amazon Prime, an Amazon spokeswoman was not immediately available for comment.

Update: Following the publication of the article, a representative for Amazon sent the following statement:

According to the law and the facts, the FTC's assertions are untrue. The fact is that customers adore Prime, and we intentionally make it easy for them to sign up for or terminate their membership. We constantly pay attention to customer input and search for ways to enhance the customer experience, as we do with all of our goods and services. We anticipate the facts coming to light as this matter progresses. We are particularly troubled by the FTC's sudden announcement of this complaint, which happened as we were conversing with FTC employees to make sure they were aware of the relevant facts, context, and legal difficulties.3