"If you've ever tried to end your Amazon Prime subscription, you may have found yourself embroiled in a disorienting multistep process that felt more like a choose-your-own-adventure than a simple cancellation. The Federal Trade Commission is now taking Amazon to court over that cumbersome user journey, alleging that it was by design. The FTC claims that Amazon spent years knowingly trapping its customers in an endless Prime subscription-making cancellation so confusing that, per the agency, Amazon named the process the "Iliad Flow" after Homer's 16,000-line epic poem."
"The FTC's lawsuit, which was first filed in 2023, alleges that Amazon "tricked" more than 40 million customers into enrolling in automatically renewing Prime subscriptions. It lays out in painstaking detail how Amazon knowingly used " dark patterns," user interface tactics designed to dupe or confuse users, including its "Iliad Flow," to coerce enrollment in Prime "without their consent" and to make it especially difficult to cancel Prime subscriptions."
Federal regulators allege Amazon deployed deliberate user-interface dark patterns to enroll and retain Prime members without clear consent. The FTC accuses Amazon of designing a convoluted cancellation path called the "Iliad Flow" that deliberately confused and trapped subscribers, and claims more than 40 million customers were "tricked" into automatically renewing memberships. The lawsuit, filed in 2023, details tactics intended to dupe users and make cancellations difficult. Legal action aims to challenge widespread industry use of dark patterns and could establish precedents affecting how major retailers and Big Tech craft interfaces. Experts warn that Amazon's market position enabled especially aggressive tactics.
Read at Fast Company
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