The Federal Trade Commission check in Amazon to use dark patterns (Manipulator tricks) in the online registration of Amazon Prime.

According to some people data Introduction of interested in tradeAnd the Amazon Since 2017, you have been aware that users feel tampered with the registration language of their membership President.

Amazon stops shipments and access to Prime Video in Russia

However, the company has not made any changes to the design UX / User InterfaceFearing low registration fees for their subscriptions.

Given this, Amazon It chose to maintain a design strategy known as dark patternswhich uses deceptive user interfaces to manipulate users into subscribing to the Service.

These deceptive design patterns can be lowercase letters and buttons “agree» Giants, persuasive ads, hidden costs, deceptive quests, among others.

Trick to achieve an Amazon Prime subscription

in case if AmazonUsers are misled by a disguised advertisement. So when you click the button “Get free 2-day delivery with Prime”Users are automatically enrolled in a 30-day free trial in President which becomes membership at the end of that period.

Therefore, users end up signing up for a membership with an annual payment of $139 without even realizing it until the first service bill arrives.

It is worth noting that Amazon She has faced lawsuits related to this issue in the past.

In 2017, the tech giant faced a the demand Collective where clients Amazon In California and Texas claiming to be scammed to obtain that membership when purchasing products online from Amazon.

Prosecutors allege that Amazon electronically withdrew between $100 and $400 from their bank accounts for Prime memberships they didn’t want.

Complex cancellation process

On the other hand, the process of canceling that membership is quite complicated.

According to the internal documents he has access to from the inside«Amazon Create multiple layers of new questions and offers before a member President Subscription can be canceled.

This project is named after “Iliad” And they were able to reduce the number of cancellations they were experiencing sometime in 2017 by 14%.

Amazon responses

Given this situation, Amazon said that the process for signing up and canceling Prime is simple and transparent. In addition to clearly showing customers all the options and the implications of those choices.

“Transparency and customer trust are our top priorities. By design, we make it clear and simple for customers to sign up or cancel their prime membership. We constantly listen to customer feedback and look for ways to improve customer experience.”

Jamil Ghani, Vice President of Amazon Prime

Finally, it’s not clear what the state of the FTC’s investigation into Amazon’s underwriting practices will be…so we’ll have to wait and see how all of this turns out.