Amazon named its “labyrinthine” Prime cancellation process after Homer’s Iliad

The Federal Trade Commission sued Amazon today, claiming the online giant violated US law by tricking consumers into signing up for the $14.99-per-month Amazon Prime subscription service and making it annoyingly difficult to cancel.

"For years, Defendant Amazon.com, Inc. has knowingly duped millions of consumers into unknowingly enrolling in its Amazon Prime service," the FTC alleged in a complaint filed in US District Court for the Western District of Washington. "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 said that until recent changes spurred by the agency's investigation, Amazon required Prime customers who wanted to cancel to go through a "four-page, six-click, fifteen-option cancellation process." For example, Amazon's "End Membership" button did not actually end membership in Prime, the FTC said. Clicking "End Membership" redirected consumers to Amazon's actual, extremely tedious process for canceling, the FTC said.

The FTC is seeking a permanent injunction, civil penalties, and other monetary relief. The agency says Amazon violated Section 5 of the FTC Act by unfairly charging consumers without their express informed consent.

The FTC said Amazon also violated the Restore Online Shoppers' Confidence Act (ROSCA), a 2010 law that "generally prohibits charging consumers for goods or services sold in transactions effected on the Internet through a negative option feature." Amazon was accused of violating the law because its disclosures to consumers were inadequate and because it "failed to obtain the consumer's express informed consent" before charging each customer.

A negative option feature is defined in FTC regulations as a "provision under which the consumer's silence or failure to take an affirmative action to reject goods or services or to cancel the agreement is interpreted by the seller as acceptance of the offer." US law authorizes the court "to award monetary civil penalties of up to $50,120 for each violation of ROSCA," the FTC said.

Amazon’s “Iliad”

The FTC complaint said that Amazon finally made some changes to its cancellation process in April 2023 due to pressure from the agency. "Fittingly, Amazon named that [cancellation] process 'Iliad,' which refers to Homer's epic about the long, arduous Trojan War," the FTC said. "Amazon designed the Iliad cancellation process ('Iliad Flow') to be labyrinthine, and Amazon and its leadership—including [Prime executives Neil] Lindsay, [Russell] Grandinetti, and [Jamil] Ghani—slowed or rejected user experience changes that would have made Iliad simpler for consumers because those changes adversely affected Amazon's bottom line."

You can access Amazon Prime's current cancellation process by starting at this page.

Before the April 2023 changes, "there were only two ways to cancel a Prime subscription through Amazon: a) through the online labyrinthine cancellation flow known as the 'Iliad Flow' on desktop and mobile devices; or b) by contacting customer service," the FTC said. "The Iliad Flow required consumers intending to cancel to navigate a four-page, six-click, fifteen-option cancellation process. In contrast, customers could enroll in Prime with one or two clicks."

While customers could enroll in Prime "through devices other than computers and smartphones, such as through the Prime Video application on the Amazon Fire Stick and Fire TV, they could not cancel via these same technologies. Instead, they had to use the Iliad Flow or call customer service," the FTC said.

The FTC said that Amazon's Iliad cancellation process was in place from 2016 until this year. To reach the so-called Iliad Flow, customers would "navigate from Amazon.com to the Prime account management page (Prime Central), locate the 'manage membership' dropdown, and press a button labelled 'End Membership,'" or "search 'How to cancel membership' in the Amazon search bar, then move through subsequent steps to reach the Iliad Flow—frequently, selecting a link reading 'End Your Amazon Prime Membership' and then pressing a button reading 'End Your Prime Membership.'"

Completing those steps wasn't enough to cancel, the FTC said. "Once consumers reached the Iliad Flow, they had to proceed through its entirety—spanning three pages, each of which presented consumers several options, beyond the Prime Central page—to cancel Prime," the lawsuit said.