Amazon faces legal challenge over Prime cancellation policy
| bbc.com 14 Jan 2021 at 01:29 |
World
It has filed a legal complaint with Norway s consumer protection authority claiming the design breaches EU law.
Amazon rejected claims the process was unfair or difficult.
said that on each of the six pages in the cancellation process, the consumer "is nudged towards keeping their Prime membership".
The pages include yellow warning triangles with an exclamation point inside and buttons containing the text "keep my benefits".
This, is said, is an example of "dark patterns" - which it defines as techniques or features of design that are meant to manipulate users.
Amazon Prime is a digital subscription service with more than 150 million members globally. It offers free and fast shipping of Amazon products, as well as access to other services such as Prime Video films and TV shows.
In the UK, it costs £79 a year or £7.99 a month.
In a statement, Amazon said it "makes it clear and easy for Prime members to cancel their subscription at any time, whether through a few clicks online, a quick phone call or by turning off auto renew in their membership options".
It added: "Customer trust is at the heart of all of our products and services and we reject the claim that our cancellation process is unfair or creates uncertainty.
"The information we provide in the online cancellation flow gives a full view of the benefits and services members are cancelling."
In 2019, the UK s Advertising Standards Authority ruled that one of Amazon s page layouts was misleading and meant people could easily have signed up for Prime unintentionally.
The NCC s director of digital policy, Finn Lutzow-Holm Myrstad, said: "It should be as easy to end a subscription as it was to subscribe in the first place.
"Amazon should facilitate a good user experience instead of hindering customers and tricking them into continuing paid service they do not need or want."
It found that the documents often hid privacy-friendly options or forced users to take longer to sign up to them, with some settings obscured and pop-ups omitting key information.
