The Federal Trade Commission sued Amazon on Wednesday for what it called a years-long effort to enroll consumers without consent into its Prime program and making it difficult for them to cancel their subscriptions.
In a complaint filed in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Washington, the agency accused Amazon of using deceptive designs, known as “dark patterns,” to deceive consumers into enrolling in the program. It said the option to purchase items on Amazon without subscribing to Prime was more difficult in many cases. It also said that consumers were sometimes presented with a button to complete their transactions — and the button didn't clearly state it was also enrolling them into Prime.
