From

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2023/jun/21/amazon-sued-prime-cancel-ftc

Amazon duped millions
into enrolling in Prime,
US regulator says in lawsuit

By Guardian staff and agencies
Wed 21 Jun 2023 12.19 EDT

Jeff Bezos at the US grand prix in Miami in May.
Photograph: Dan Istitene/Getty Images

Federal Trade Commission alleges the Bezos firm used “manipulative and deceptive user-interface designs to trick consumers.” 

Launched in 2005, Prime has more than 200 million members worldwide who pay $139 a year, or $14.99 a month, for faster shipping and other perks, such as free delivery, returns and the streaming service Prime Video. 

That’s $27,800,000,000
(twenty-seven billion 800 million
dollars per year)!

In the first three months of this year, Amazon reported it made $9.6bn from subscription, a 17% jump from the same period last year.

That will be $38.4 billion
in 12 months!
($38,400,000,000)

No wonder Jeff can plan to ride his personal spaceships to his private Mars Colony once he and his kind completely ruin the Earth.

Use this link to read The Super Rich Seek Escape From The Catastrophe They Created Themselves in The Sadderday Times.

The US Federal Trade Commission has sued Amazon for what it called
a years-long effort to enroll consumers without their consent
into its paid subscription program, Amazon Prime, and
making it hard for them to cancel.

The FTC, the US agency charged with consumer protection, filed a federal lawsuit in Seattle, where Amazon is headquartered, alleging that the tech behemoth “knowingly duped millions of consumers into unknowingly enrolling in Amazon Prime.”

The FTC said Amazon used “manipulative, coercive or deceptive user-interface designs known as ‘dark patterns’ to trick consumers into enrolling in automatically-renewing Prime subscriptions.”

It said the option to purchase items on Amazon without subscribing to Prime was more difficult in many cases. It also said that consumers were sometimes presented with a button to complete their transactions – which didn’t clearly state it would also enroll them into Prime.

[Secretly and] internally, Amazon called the process “Iliad,” a reference to the ancient Greek poem about lengthy siege of Troy during the Trojan war.

Amazon leaders slowed or rejected changes that made canceling the subscription easier, the complaint said. [The FTC] argued those patterns were in violation of the FTC Act and another law called the Restore Online Shoppers’ Confidence Act.

The FTC said that “one of Amazon’s primary business goals—and the primary business goal of Prime—is increasing subscriber numbers.”

In a news release announcing the lawsuit, the FTC said though its complaint is significantly redacted, it contains “a number of allegations” that back up its accusations against Amazon. [The FTC] also accused the company of attempting to hinder the agency’s investigation into Prime, which began in 2021, in several instances.

“Amazon tricked and trapped people into recurring subscriptions without their consent, not only frustrating users but also costing them significant money,” said Lina Khan, chair of the FTC, in a prepared statement. “These manipulative tactics harm consumers and law-abiding businesses alike.”

Amazon has faced other lawsuits accusing its Prime cancelation process of being too complicated. 

In March, under scrutiny from [the FTC], [Amazon] provided consumers with instructions on how to cancel their Prime memberships in [an obscure] blog post. Amazon did not issue a statement.

Amazon has faced heightened regulatory scrutiny in recent years as it moved to expand its e-commerce dominance and dip its toes into other markets, including groceries and healthcare.

The lawsuit follows another Amazon-related win by the FTC just a few weeks ago. Earlier this month, Amazon agreed to pay a $25m civil penalty to settle allegations Amazon violated a child privacy law for storing kids’ voice and location data recorded by its popular Alexa voice assistant. 

It also agreed to pay $5.8m in customer refunds for “alleged” privacy violations involving its [video and audio spying] doorbell product called Ring.

Notes from Sherman

Perhaps you’ve heard about all the spyware products from Amazon and others?

Let’s see. There’s:

• 1. Ring
  As mentioned just above, the dreaded Amazon “Ring” spying doorbell system. There’s a camera looking outside at who’s at your front door. There are cameras at various places inside the home. Each camera has a VERY sensitive microphone. No matter what room you go into, Ring can hear you. The mikes and cameras are all ON 24 hours a day recording what you wear, where you go and what you say.
  
  Ring security is VERY easy to defeat.
  
  Amazon (the Mother Ship) gets to watch your home movies any time they want to.
  
  Even a moderately savvy neighbor can figure out the weak security because there’s voluminous help on the Internet. Now your neighbor can eavesdrop on what you say and see what you are wearing and what you are doing inside your home with the Ring cameras. There’s no other word for it. It’s MONSTROUS.
  
  Early on the police demanded to be given access to the movies (with sound) made available by Ring. Ring granted the police blanket approval so now the police can spy on Ring users right along with Amazon and your neighbors.
  
  In 1932 Aldous Huxley wrote Brave New World. Guess what? THIS IS IT.
• 2. Alexa
  Google Alexa radios, TVs, dishwashers, ovens and refrigerators which listen to every word spoken throughout your home 24 hours a day. Alexa sends all these recordings back to the Mother Ship. The very next time you use Google spyware like Gmail or the Chrome browser, you may be startled to see side advertisements targeted to exactly what you’ve been talking about at home! Surprise!
  
  Aldous! How did you get so smart?
• 3. Bluetooth press to wake
  In the Good Ol’ Days you could be driving your car, press your bluetooth’s button and the phone would go boooooop boop boop beep. You could then say, “Call Sherman” and the phone would make the call for you. Smartphones (like Samsung) have intentionally turned off the bluetooth press-to-wake button. Now you have to pull off the freeway, find a place to park, get out your “smart” phone, finger a bunch of buttons and start the call. Then you have to find your way back to a freeway onramp to continue your driving.
  
  To get the press-to-wake feature back, you are FORCED to use Google’s spyware.  With Google activated, your smartphone now spies on everything it hears you say, every text your write, email you send and everything the phone’s camera sees 24 hours every day.
  
  Hey Aldous! You were right all along.
  
  
• 4. Windows 10
  Starting with Windows 10, Microsoft turned Windows into malware / spyware. The evil spyware code is buried deep in the core of the operating system and so it can never be removed or deactivated. Now that the spyware/malware is in place, Microsoft can read all your passwords, emails, texts, record everything you say and take movies using the built-in video camera. The “Bing” search engine is especially toxic. It searches not just the Internet, but every scrap of personal information on your computer every time it is used. THAT is why Bing is SO SLOW.
  
  Microsoft receives a video of everything the camera sees WITHOUT turning on the warning light. The warning light is off but the camera is on. Beautiful females who have a computer running in their bedrooms put on a great show for the geeks at Microsoft without ever knowing it.
  
  All this spying information is immediately sent to Microsoft where there are actually people whose job it is to comb through the mountain of spying information that is captured by Windows 10 every day, 24 hours a day.
  
  Microsoft has been busted for the spying they are doing. Did they stop? NO.
  
  How to get rid of Microsoft’s spying? Erase Windows and install Ubuntu (Linux). See my book How 2 here.
  https://shermankeene.com/how-2.html

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