FTC files complaint against Amazon for deceptive tactics

June 21 (UPI) -- The Federal Trade Commission filed a complaint Wednesday against Amazon, alleging the company tricked customers into enrolling in its Prime subscription service and made it difficult to cancel subscriptions.

"The Federal Trade Commission is taking action against Amazon.com Inc. for its years-long effort to enroll customers into its Prime program without their consent or knowledge," the FTC said in a news release Wednesday.

"In a complaint filed today the FTC charges that Amazon has knowingly duped millions of customers into unknowingly enrolling in Amazon Prime," the FTC said.

The FTC said Amazon violated the FTC Act and the Restore Online Shoppers' Confidence Act by using "dark patterns."

"Specifically, Amazon used manipulative, coercive, or deceptive user-interface designs known as 'dark patterns' to trick customers into enrolling in automatically renewing Amazon Prime subscriptions," the FTC continued.

"Amazon tricked and trapped people into recurring subscriptions without their consent, not only frustrating users but also costing significant money," said FTC Chairperson Lina Khan.

In September, the FTC released a report on "dark patterns," alleging that the practice has become widespread.

"These tactics include advertisements designed to look like independent, editorial content; comparison shopping sites that claim to be neutral but really rank companies based on compensation; and countdown timers designed to make consumers believe they only have a limited time to purchase a product or service when the offer is not actually time-limited," the FTC said in the report.

According to the report, "deceptive subscription sellers may saddle consumers with recurring payments for products and services they never intended to purchase or that they do not wish to continue purchasing."

The FTC said Amazon's checkout process is tainted by "dark patterns."

"During Amazon's online checkout process, consumers were faced with numerous opportunities to subscribe to Amazon Prime at $14.99/month. In many cases, the option to purchase items on Amazon without subscribing to prime was more difficult for consumers to locate," the FTC said.

The commission also alleges that Amazon made cancelations deliberately confusing.

"The FTC charges that Amazon put in place a cancellation process designed to deter consumers from successfully unsubscribing from Prime," the commission said.