FTC Sues Amazon for Inducing Users To Subscribe To Prime (nytimes.com) 70
The Federal Trade Commission on Wednesday sued Amazon for illegally inducing consumers to sign up for its Prime service and then hindering them from canceling the subscription, the most aggressive action against the company to date by the agency's chair, Lina Khan. From a report: The lawsuit, filed in U.S. District Court for the Western District of Washington, argues that Amazon had used design tactics on its website known as "dark patterns" to nudge people into subscribing to Prime, the F.T.C. said in a release. And when consumers wanted to cancel, they had to go through a byzantine process to do so.
"Amazon tricked and trapped people into recurring subscriptions without their consent, not only frustrating users but also costing them significant money," Ms. Khan said in a statement. The lawsuit was the first time that the F.T.C. has taken Amazon to court under Ms. Khan, who rose to fame with a viral critique of the company and who is ramping up scrutiny of the e-commerce giant. Ms. Khan has said the power that big tech companies have over online commerce requires regulators to be far more aggressive and has begun taking actions against them./i.
"Amazon tricked and trapped people into recurring subscriptions without their consent, not only frustrating users but also costing them significant money," Ms. Khan said in a statement. The lawsuit was the first time that the F.T.C. has taken Amazon to court under Ms. Khan, who rose to fame with a viral critique of the company and who is ramping up scrutiny of the e-commerce giant. Ms. Khan has said the power that big tech companies have over online commerce requires regulators to be far more aggressive and has begun taking actions against them./i.
FTC Needs Funding (Score:5, Insightful)
Far be it from me for defending Amazon, but... While it is somewhat annoying to cancel prime---you have to click through a few screens of "are you really really sure?" it's easily doable online without calling and waiting on hold, so it's already far ahead of most cable and phone companies. Calling it "byzantine" is a little disingenuous.
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I got accidentally signed up to Prime without a confirmation prompt. Amazon is full of dark patterns.
Re:FTC Needs Funding (Score:5, Interesting)
Dark patterns, force if you avoid (Score:3, Informative)
I've also had them replace the order button with a 'complete order' that activates prime, or add a prime subscription to my cart so if I 'checkout' I also buy prime.
That's in addition to 'get prime' interstitial checkout ads that have a 'signup' next button.
So what happened? Did Amazon donate to the opponent of the FTC person calling the
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Well, okay, it could have indeed been a "free trial", as I don't remember the specifics. It's quite possible it would start billing me automatically if I either forgot to cancel, or couldn't figure out how to cancel.
Re:FTC Needs Funding (Score:5, Insightful)
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...Cancelling should require no more clicks or effort than it did to sign up.
Yes, cancelling should be as easy as signing up.
Subscriptions also should automatically cancel or go into some sort of "no payment required" suspension if they were not used at all in the prior billing period (month, year, etc.), with no termination/reinstatement fee beyond the amount which they just got paid without delivering any services.
Depending on the company, this may be no purchases made, no items streamed, cable box remained offline, doorbell did not upload any videos, etc.
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Re:FTC Needs Funding (Score:5, Informative)
More of the problem is getting signed up for Prime without realizing it. Cancelling should be EASY, and it's not. Ie, buying on Amazon will say in larger letters "do you want free shipping?" and if you click yes then in smaller letters "this subscribes you to Prime, is that ok?". Many users do not know what "Prime" is, or that there's going to be a recurring charge; this kind of verges into the neighborhood of taking advantage of the elderly. Also confusing is that first month is free but there will be recurring charges later after the end of the month
Even for myself, I know what Prime is, but I don't use Amazon often, and I still found myself subscribed to Prime once and had to manually cancel it, and other times I have found myself in the Prime subscription screen accidentally.
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How does that work, when signing up for Prime prompts you whether you want to pay for it yearly at a small discount, or recurring monthly?
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Well, ever since they started using their own malingering and incompetent delivery drivers instead of USP and FedEx, who even knows? For me anyway, so many of Amazon's drivers seem to feel that they are empowered to unilaterally decide I shouldn't get my stuff on the date specified on the site and my confirmation emails that my Prime subscription has been covered by Amazon's "We apologize for the inconvenience." account credits for a few years now anyway.
Personally, I'd rather they fire and replace the sla
Re:FTC Needs Funding (Score:5, Informative)
Because you already have the credit card out when you're buying one thing from Amazon. Then "do you want free shipping?" goes to the page to sign up for Prime. You say "yes" if you're not paying close attention and then it's set up. It automatically then is set up for recurring monthly payment.
Amazon aren't the only ones making it easy to sign up for stuff you don't need. AT&T has been getting my mom to upgrade all the time, she has 500GB broadband that she only uses for light web browsing and no streaming since they promised it would be cheaper (but only the first year). Chrome gets itself attached to other programs as an opt-out additional installation. People who aren't reading all the fine print and being extremely careful about what happens on the internet fall for these sorts of tricks all the time, and big businesses know this and rely on these deceptive techniques.
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How does that work, when signing up for Prime prompts you whether you want to pay for it yearly at a small discount, or recurring monthly?
No. When signing up for Prime proper it asks you if you want a yearly or monthly subscription. If signing up as part of the checkout process it just defaults to monthly.
I also accidentally signed up for Prime.
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It's "opt out", and companies prefer that because it's easier to get folks to use your product that way, whereas opt-in requires an positive action to be taken which discourages those who are on the fence about the decision. The fact that people who don't even want the product often end up forgetting to opt out is just a bonus. These are just customers after all, no one needs to be nice to them...
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Yeah, this got me as well. Bought a bunch of things from Amazon last Christmas period, and accidentally subscribed to Prime in the process. Due precisely to how you described the checkout payment buttons.
It didn't worry me too much, as I had never subscribed to Prime before, and it was the complimentary 1 month subscription. Used it for a bit, even paid for a few more months, then cancelled it.
But still, it's a real worry about how they obscure the continue without Prime option for checkouts. Happy for
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Would you like a Blattfruit Pie with that??
http://www.sierrawallpaper.com... [sierrawallpaper.com]
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The constantly trying to trick you into signing up for Prime is extremely annoying, but I do occasionally take them up on it and enjoy a free month of prime. I seem to get about 2 months a year free out of them.
If I could be bothered to install the Amazon Prime app I'd binge their TV shows as well, but I prefer to just download from The Pirate Bay because those files are compatible with my setup.
Just set a notification in your calendar to cancel a few days before the trial ends.
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Its sad but most of these types of things shows just how little faith the government places on the average person.
In their mind the populace is a bunch of bumbling idiots who if they purchase something its because they were "tricked" and they can't possibly figure out the complexities of canceling something that can be done within a few clicks.
I understand people are stupid, but they're not THAT stupid.
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Re: FTC Needs Funding (Score:2)
I don't know about Prime, but after a single click subscribed me to a channel on Prime, it took me 30 minutes of hunting to find a way to unsubscribe. I wasn't tricked into subscribing, but was ultimately forced to log into amazon.com to hunt for the unsubscribe instead of finding a way to do it in the app. That lack of symmetry should be illegal.
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Calling it "byzantine" is a little disingenuous.
The internal Amazon document for cancelling was called the Illiad and was over 200 pages long. Heard this on the NPR story on my way home, but this does not show in the NPR story on their site [npr.org]. It was mentioned by their reporter, Mary Louise Kelly, during the interview.
That's not their only trick... (Score:1)
The worst part of the new tricks from Amazon, is that they now make you pay for continuing to watch the movies they had in their library to Prime subscribers.
I had a bunch of movies I watched a little every time after work, today I came back to Amazon only to find their new implementation: "Hire or Buy" feature.
It showed me how much I've watched of that movie, but now it insist that I pay for each one.
That's a bamboozle thats not going well in my books.
Re:That's not their only trick... (Score:5, Informative)
I'm not sure what you're complaining about...
Unless you are going under the assumption that once a movie shows up "free" in Prime, that it will always be available "free" in Prime...?
If so, that is just not the case...in fact, this is not the case in almost any streaming platform...
For instance...movies/shows on Netflix, often are not there in perpetuity for you to watch.
Many of these services license them for a set period of time and if you don't watch during that time, it either disappears, or in the case of Prime, they will still offer it like many other moves to pay rent or "buy"...
This is common.
Actually, I get some emails or used to get some from Amazon telling which movies/shows were leaving Prime at the end of the month, etc.
But what you describe is normal on a lot of platforms that license content from 3rd party owners.
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Well I don't live in the US, so we never had the Amazon "hire or rent" model, we didn't even have that with Neflix when it came to our country, so maybe that's why.
When Netflix launched in Scandinavia, it was a smaller selection of movies than the U.S. Many of the Scandinavian circumvented this by using VPN's, and you can argue that's not fair play (I kinda agree with that, because I never did that, but I didn't like the price hike from 6$ to 20$ that happened here. So I quit, never looked back.
Amazon and D
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Well I don't live in the US, so we never had the Amazon "hire or rent" model
Are you sure? Amazon had a hire or rent model in countries for Prime Video before it introduced free streaming as part of the Prime subscription.
A minor nitpick (Score:2)
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For instance...movies/shows on Netflix, often are not there in perpetuity for you to watch.
The benefit of Netflix is if the movie is not there it's not there, they don't come out and say "Such a shame you didn't get through all of Season 2 of That Thing You Like. For a small fee of $5.99 we'll let you watch the rest though. "
Re: That's not their only trick... (Score:1)
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This isn't that big of a deal. Subscription services rotate available content all the time
It's much worse if you're dumb enough to outright purchase a movie to keep in your own library, then have to pay them forever to have access to it. We don't purchase movies on subscription services ever for that very reason. It's not a "purchase" if you have to pay someone else to access it again. It's, at most, a rental. I'll do rentals for a film I want to watch once through them. Never, ever would I purchase one. No
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LOL. Seriuously? (Score:5, Insightful)
"Easy subscription, almost impossible cancelling" bad Amazon, bad.
FTC then MUST sue ALL companies because that's how they behave... Pick any phone company (easy as to say "yes") and try to leave (impossible, you need even to send them your DNA tests).
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Is it different in Canada? (Score:2)
Dark pattern... yet again (Score:4, Informative)
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I had to tell multiple times less-than-familiar-with-computers relatives to dodge the giant "Continue with Prime" button during checkout and click on the small link bypassing it (I don't live in the US, but I guess it is similar there). I don't think most online customers are that careful though.
Yes, it definitely is here. I think they make the opt out link really tiny because it increases the number of elderly subscribers.
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>I think they make the opt out link really tiny because it increases the number of elderly subscribers.
They got my father. One day he'll figure out the price that came with it, but for now he's happy.
I just know "TANSTAAFL" - There Ain't No Such Thing As A Free Lunch. They were never giving it away, it always had a price tag... they just obscure it enough that a lot of people don't notice.
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The alternative is so subtle that the first time I hit that page I cancelled the order and started again because I didn't see the "without Prime" option and thought I must have accidentally selected something earlier in the process.
AOL called... (Score:4, Funny)
You don't become a trillion dollar company (Score:5, Insightful)
Hmmm... never tried to cancel it... (Score:2)
I milk it for everything I can. In Canada you don't have easy data extraction on your purchase history like you do in the US - but it's there and automated if you know where to look. Imagine my surprise when I had the data pulled early this year and discovered my purchases came to... $54,000.
Now, that history goes back to 2005. My very first purchase was an Oracle jDeveloper 10g Handbook, by Oracle Press... Damn, how times have changed. Imagine a printed book like that now... I mean except for my sed &
How soon until she is hired ... (Score:2)
This is absolute horseshit (Score:2, Informative)
I unsubbed from Prime last week and it took all of 60 seconds. There are lots of reasons to not like Amazon but this isn't one of them.
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They must have changed it.. because every time Ive done the free prime, and then gone to cancel it, you have to click through at least 3 "are you sure you want to cancel" screens, which is complete horseshit.
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Consider that they can do pattern analysis on both you and the AC. That's part of the whole "dark pattern" thing.
So they don't advertise female things to me, and from my purchase history(including things like a computer rack), they can probably figure out that I'm technically literate and handy. Probably assume that I'm either incredibly harsh on my cables or that I'm handing them out/losing them all the time*, but whatever.
So they decide that mucking around with making it hard for me to unsubscribe from
Byzantine Process???? (Score:5, Insightful)
Unsubscribing from Prime is a few mouse clicks. It takes literal seconds.
Has anyone at the FTC ever tried to cancel their cable or phone service, or migrate to another provider, without talking to anyone on the phone?
Get your priorities in order FTC.
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Every high-profile action taken by the FTC, FCC, SEC, etc. within 16 months of the next Presidential election should be understood in context of the astroturfing construction of a campaign narrative for whoever the current incumbent happens to be.
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It takes literal seconds.
You can count how long the universe has existed in literal seconds. It just depends on the number. No as someone who did accidentally get signed up to Prime (in literal seconds), the unsubscribing process is far more difficult. The fact that it's not as bad as a cable company is not a defence.
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You're speaking as an alert, well-educated Amazon customer. For many, such as my 80-year-old in-laws, just ordering something from Amazon is already confusing enough, let alone trying to cancel (or avoid signing up for) a Prime subscription. It might be easy for YOU to cancel, but not everybody is as smart as you. And it's not OK for businesses to take advantage of people who (in your opinion) are "dumb."
Re: Byzantine Process???? (Score:2)
Is it easy for her to cancel her cable bill?
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I felt left out (Score:2)
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I tried their free Prime once a long time ago and that was a simple cancellation by turning off the Prime subscription. Cancelling seems Ok but they get a little deceptive and you can get signed up if you don't read every checkout screen carefully. When I get older and less attentive it mi
AhYup (Score:2)
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This is why I use paypal (Score:1)
This is why I use paypal for online payments, I don't have to piss around with some byzantine process, I can just cancel in paypal.
Smash capitalism! (Score:3)
This FTC and the wrath of Khan are just trying to kill all that evil capitalism.
I found Amazon's inducement to Prime totally upfront, and totally easy to cancel. In addition, they warned me by email that my free trial period was coming to an end so I could cancel in time.
Amazon is totally amazing. Doesn't anyone remember what it used to be like before? Order a $6 item, and it costs $10 shipping that will arrive in "7 to 10 business days," in other words 2 WEEKS.
Going after them in this totally bogus way is utter pure malevolence.
Heading. (Score:1)