Good….
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.
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.
Amazon didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.
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….
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The lawsuit is part of a larger effort by regulators to limit the power of tech giants including Amazon, Apple, Google, Microsoft and Meta, Facebook’s parent company. The Department of Justice has in recent years filed multiple antitrust cases against Google.
Amazon has recently settled cases with the F.T.C. that began before Ms. Khan’s tenure. The company agreed to pay $25 million last month to settle F.T.C. claims that Amazon’s Alexa home assistant devices had illegally collected children’s data. The agency also settled another privacy case with Amazon’s Ring home security subsidiary…
Note:
This dog does NOT like Amazon …..
Jeff Bezos company is TOO DAMN BIG…….
Amazon stock has dropped 1% hours after the FTC suit has been annouced…..