What is the true price of a click on Amazon’s website? That question is at the heart of a federal trial that has now begun, with the U.S. government alleging that for millions of consumers, a single mistaken click led to an unwanted $139-a-year Prime subscription due to deceptive design.
The Federal Trade Commission’s lawsuit claims that Amazon engineered its checkout page to make that accidental click incredibly easy. The use of “dark patterns,” such as large, pre-selected buttons to join Prime, turned the simple act of completing a purchase into a high-stakes moment where one wrong move could lock a user into a recurring fee.
The trial will also examine what happened after that costly click. The FTC is highlighting the “Iliad” cancellation process as the second part of the trap. This “labyrinthine” system ensured that reversing the consequences of the initial click was a frustrating, multi-step ordeal.
This case is a critical examination of consent in the digital age. The FTC is arguing that a click does not equal consent if it is obtained through confusion or manipulation. A victory for the agency could force companies to be far more rigorous in how they confirm a user’s intent to subscribe.
Amazon’s defense is that the terms and price of Prime were always clearly disclosed. The company will argue that a click on a button to subscribe constitutes a valid agreement and that the FTC is trying to infantilize consumers who are capable of making their own choices online.