Amazon’s Prime Problem: The FTC Pushes Back on Deceptive Web Design

In June of 2023, the Federal Trade Commission (“FTC”) filed suit against Amazon.com, Inc. (“Amazon”) for allegedly deceptively enrolling customers into its Amazon Prime (“Prime”) membership program and making cancellation from the program excessively difficult. Prime provides access to exclusive digital content, consumer deals, and faster shipping for its estimated 197 million members. (Jordan Valinsky, CNN). The FTC’s suit marks one of the more significant uses of consumer protection law against a technology giant of this scale. (Caroline Haskins, Wired). The case centered around so-called “dark patterns,” subtle user interface designs and features aimed at manipulating consumer behavior. (FTC). This post seeks to explain the FTC’s complaint, acknowledge the personal liability implications of the action, and consider what the enforcement may suggest for corporate liability and consumer protections actions moving forward.

The FTC’s initial and amended complaint alleged that Amazon’s Prime enrollment and cancellation processes violated both Section 5 of the FTC Act and the Restore Online Shoppers’ Confidence Act (“ROSCA”). (Macy Meyer, CNET). These acts require businesses to obtain express and informed consent before charging customers and require the provision of simple and easy methods of canceling purchases and subscription-type services. (Miranda Jeyaretnam, TIME). According to the FTC complaint, Amazon frequently used confusing page layouts and pre-checked boxes, often across multiple steps, to auto-enroll customers in its Prime program as they were completing purchases. (U.S. District Court). These pages often also contained additional offers to subscribe or continue a subscription at a discounted rate. (FTC). The FTC further claimed that Amazon engineers internally referred to the cancellation path as the “Iliad Flow,” likening it to the epic’s long and arduous journey. (David McCabe, New York Times). The FTC argued that these patterns were deliberate and intended to keep customers locked in and unable to cancel their memberships. (Frank Gorman et al., WilmerHale).  

The FTC filed its initial complaint on June 21, 2023, in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Washington. (FTC). Amazon immediately moved for summary judgment seeking to dismiss the FTC's complaint.  On May 28, 2024, the Court rejected Amazon's motion and set a date for a 10-day bench trial in 2025. (David Shepardson, Reuters). Finally, after over 2 years, in September of 2025, the FTC was awarded a summary judgment verdict, and Amazon reluctantly accepted a settlement offer. CITE. The settlement required Amazon to provide $1.5 billion in restitution to eligible consumers and imposed $1 billion in civil penalties to the FTC. (Jody Godoy and Greg Bensinger, Reuters). Eligible former Prime customers will receive up to $51 per person. (Macy Meyer, CNET).  As an additional part of the settlement, Amazon has also agreed to create a clearer path for customers to follow if they want to cancel their Prime memberships. (Jody Godoy and Greg Bensinger, Reuters). It is worth noting that even a settlement this large is unlikely to have a significant impact on Amazon, a company making approximately $2.5 billion every 33 hours. Id.

The September 2025 summary judgment also marked a historic shift in consumer-protection enforcement by finding that two senior Amazon executives could be personally liable under the FTC Act and ROSCA for the deceptive practices. (U.S. District Court). The court applied the Ninth Circuit’s two-part test for individual corporate liability, holding that both executives exercised authority over the subscription program, had direct personal knowledge of consumer confusion, and could not escape responsibility simply because decision-making was decentralized. (U.S. District Court). The ruling was the first of its kind, holding executives of a large public company personally liable for consumer-protection violations. (Sasha Leonhardt & Bradley Marcus, Law360). The court rejected defenses where intent or sole control are required and emphasized that oversight, awareness, and failure to act can suffice. (Sasha Leonhardt & Bradley Marcus, Law360). The decision reflects the FTC’s push for greater individual accountability and may signal a new era of enforcement, inspiring broader agency efforts to pursue executives personally across various sectors. (Rachel Rose, TAF Coalition). More broadly, it remains to be seen if this enforcement logic is applied across other federal agencies in their pursuit of consumer protection from large companies despite it being seen previously in other federal agencies.

As the FTC’s multi-year litigation against Amazon ultimately ended in the agency’s favor, the court’s summary judgement ruling marked a historic shift in liability for larger FTC actions. Importantly, senior executives at a major publicly traded company were held personally liable for consumer protection violations, perhaps generally signaling a broader willingness to impose more broad consequences in actions against corporations.