Trial to decide whether Amazon tricked customers into signing up for Prime starts today

New York CNN The Federal Commerce Commission s long-awaited trial against Amazon begins this week with the e-commerce giant s cancellation practices under the microscope The lawsuit filed in under the Biden administration accuses Amazon of tricking millions of consumers into signing up for its Prime subscription system through deceptive user interface designs and making it hard to cancel Specifically Amazon used manipulative coercive or deceptive user-interface designs known as dark patterns to trick consumers into enrolling in automatically renewing Prime subscriptions the FTC complaint announced It added that Amazon deliberately made it much harder to cancel subscriptions than to enroll in Prime alleging that the company created a labyrinthine cancellation process intended to distract or deter consumers from following through on their intent Amazon didn t directly respond to CNN s request for comment Monday The company has previously denied any wrongdoing Prime which costs per month or annually is a hallmark of Amazon s offerings and generates billions of dollars from it Initially started as an add-on for fast delivery Prime has ballooned into a multi-pronged operation that offers streaming entertainment grocery delivery fuel and food delivery perks as well as subscriber-only deals Amazon doesn t disclose how various US subscribers it has but a third-party analysis from Consumer Intelligence Research Partners estimates that it has million customers as of March The trial is expected to last about a month with jury selection beginning Monday and opening arguments scheduled for Tuesday If the jury rules that Amazon broke the law the judge will decide how much Amazon will pay in damages The FTC didn t right away respond Monday for comment Since Amazon allegedly maintained a lengthy multi-step cancellation process it internally referred to as Iliad Flow named after Homer s epic about the long arduous Trojan War the complaint reported Other than contacting customer function Amazon offered no alternative to consumers wishing to cancel apart from going through the Iliad process the FTC commented The FTC alleged that going through the Iliad Flow required customers to confront a four-page six-click fifteen-option cancellation process that contained numerous off-ramps including warnings about missing out on benefits promotional discounts and offers on deals intended to derail the customer Meanwhile Amazon made it easy to sign up for Prime in just two clicks the FTC reported and often buried specifics about recurring bills in fine print the FTC alleged Since then Amazon has made changes It now has a cancellation page that lays out member s options on whether to end or pause their Prime membership