In November 2015, arrogant AMAZON debited me for a Prime membership I did not order. The charge was reversed after I complained to my bank's fraud department. Then I spoke to AMAZON Assistant General Counsel Jeffrey A. Goldberg, formerly an anti-fraud government prosecutor. I found Mr. Goldberg and AMAZON to be insolent, insincere and exploitative. I've never used AMAZON's services since. I fled an FTC complaint against AMAZON for unfair trade practices, for billing me for a Prime subscription I had not ordered. I also reported AMAZON to Florida Attorney General Pamela Jo Bondi.
President Joe Biden supports strong antirust laws, enacted under Republican reformers since 1890.
President Biden has appointed Ms. Lena Khan as Federal Trade Commission Chairman.
Our antitrust laws are being enforced against Big Tech.
U.S. District Court
United States District Court for the Western District of Washington (Seattle)
CIVIL DOCKET FOR CASE #: 2:23-cv-00932
Federal Trade Commission v. Amazon.com, Inc. Assigned to: Cause: 15:0045 Federal Trade Commission Act | Date Filed: 06/21/2023 Jury Demand: None Nature of Suit: 890 Other Statutory Actions Jurisdiction: U.S. Government Plaintiff |
| Plaintiff | ||
| Federal Trade Commission | represented by | Evan Mendelson FEDERAL TRADE COMMISSION (DC) 600 PENNSYLVANIA AVE NW WASHINGTON, DC 20580 202-326-3320 Fax: 202-326-3197 Email: emendelson@ftc.gov LEAD ATTORNEY ATTORNEY TO BE NOTICED Colin MacDonald FEDERAL TRADE COMMISSION (WA) 915 2ND AVE STE 2896 SEATTLE, WA 98174-1097 206-220-4474 Email: cmacdonald@ftc.gov ATTORNEY TO BE NOTICED Jonathan Cohen FEDERAL TRADE COMMISSION (DC) 600 PENNSYLVANIA AVE NW WASHINGTON, DC 20580 202-326-2551 Email: jcohen2@ftc.gov ATTORNEY TO BE NOTICED Olivia Jerjian FEDERAL TRADE COMMISSION (DC) 600 PENNSYLVANIA AVE NW WASHINGTON, DC 20580 202-730-6470 Email: ojerjian@ftc.gov ATTORNEY TO BE NOTICED Thomas Maxwell Nardini FEDERAL TRADE COMMISSION (DC) 600 PENNSYLVANIA AVE NW WASHINGTON, DC 20580 202-758-5370 Email: tnardini@ftc.gov ATTORNEY TO BE NOTICED |
V. | ||
| Defendant | ||
| Amazon.com, Inc. a corporation | ||
| Date Filed | # | Docket Text |
|---|---|---|
| 06/21/2023 | 1 | COMPLAINT for Permanent Injunction, Civil Penalties, Monetary Relief, and Other Equitable Relief (Redacted) against defendant(s) Amazon.com, Inc. filed by Federal Trade Commission. (Attachments: # 1 Exhibit Attachment A, # 2 Exhibit Attachment B, # 3 Exhibit Attachment C, # 4 Exhibit Attachment D, # 5 Exhibit Attachment E, # 6 Exhibit Attachment F, # 7 Exhibit Attachment G, # 8 Exhibit Attachment H, # 9 Exhibit Attachment I, # 10 Exhibit Attachment J, # 11 Exhibit Attachment K, # 12 Exhibit Attachment L, # 13 Exhibit Attachment M, # 14 Exhibit Attachment N, # 15 Exhibit Attachment O, # 16 Exhibit Attachment P, # 17 Exhibit Attachment Q, # 18 Exhibit Attachment R, # 19 Exhibit Attachment S, # 20 Exhibit Attachment T, # 21 Exhibit Attachment U, # 22Exhibit Attachment V, # 23 Civil Cover Sheet, # 24 Summons)(Mendelson, Evan) (No Fee Required) (Entered: 06/21/2023) |
| 06/21/2023 | 2 | MOTION to Seal Complaint and Motion to Desequester, filed by Plaintiff Federal Trade Commission. (Attachments: # 1 Proposed Order) Noting Date 7/7/2023, (Mendelson, Evan) (Entered: 06/21/2023) |
| 06/21/2023 | 3 | SEALED DOCUMENT Complaint for Permanent Injunction, Civil Penalties, Monetary Relief, and Other Equitable Relief by Plaintiff Federal Trade Commission re 2 MOTION to Seal Complaint and Motion to Desequester (Attachments: # 1 Exhibit Attachment A, # 2 Exhibit Attachment B, # 3 Exhibit Attachment C, # 4 Exhibit Attachment D, # 5 Exhibit Attachment E, # 6 Exhibit Attachment F, # 7 Exhibit Attachment G, # 8 Exhibit Attachment H, # 9 Exhibit Attachment I, # 10 Exhibit Attachment J, # 11 Exhibit Attachment K, # 12 Exhibit Attachment L, # 13 Exhibit Attachment M, # 14Exhibit Attachment N, # 15 Exhibit Attachment O, # 16 Exhibit Attachment P, # 17 Exhibit Attachment Q, # 18 Exhibit Attachment R, # 19 Exhibit Attachment S, # 20 Exhibit Attachment T, # 21Exhibit Attachment U, # 22 Exhibit Attachment V)(Mendelson, Evan) (Entered: 06/21/2023) |
| 06/21/2023 | 4 | SEALED MOTION to Desequester Documents Clawed Back by Defendant; re 2 MOTION to Seal Complaint and Motion to Desequester ; by Plaintiff Federal Trade Commission. (Attachments: # 1Exhibit A (Declaration of Adam Rottner), # 2 Proposed Order) Noting Date 7/7/2023, (Mendelson, Evan) (Entered: 06/21/2023) |
| 06/21/2023 | 5 | NOTICE of Filing Public, Redacted Version of Motion to Desequester Documents Clawed Back by Defendant ; filed by Plaintiff Federal Trade Commission. (Attachments: # 1 Exhibit Motion to Desequester Documents Clawed Back by Defendant (Redacted), # 2 Exhibit Exhibit A to Motion to Desequester (Redacted))(Mendelson, Evan) (Entered: 06/21/2023) |
| 06/21/2023 | 6 | MOTION for Leave to File Over-length Motions and Briefs Motion for Leave to Exceed Word Limit for Motion to Desequester Documents Clawed Back by Defendant, filed by Plaintiff Federal Trade Commission. (Attachments: # 1 Proposed Order) Noting Date 6/21/2023, (Mendelson, Evan) (Entered: 06/21/2023) |
| 06/21/2023 | 7 | NOTICE of Submission of Documents for In Camera Review ; filed by Plaintiff Federal Trade Commission. (Mendelson, Evan) (Entered: 06/21/2023) |
From The New York Times:
David McCabe reports on tech policy from Washington.
The Federal Trade Commission on Wednesday sued Amazon for illegally inducing consumers to sign up for its Prime service and then hindering them from canceling the subscription, the most aggressive action against the company to date by the agency’s chair, Lina Khan.
The lawsuit, filed in U.S. District Court for the Western District of Washington, argues that Amazon had used design tactics on its website known as “dark patterns” to nudge people into subscribing to Prime, the F.T.C. said in a release. And when consumers wanted to cancel, they had to go through a byzantine process to do so.
“Amazon tricked and trapped people into recurring subscriptions without their consent, not only frustrating users but also costing them significant money,” Ms. Khan said in a statement.
Amazon didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.
The lawsuit was the first time that the F.T.C. has taken Amazon to court under Ms. Khan, who rose to fame with a viral critique of the company and who is ramping up scrutiny of the e-commerce giant. Ms. Khan has said the power that big tech companies have over online commerce requires regulators to be far more aggressive and has begun taking actions against them.
Under Ms. Khan, the F.T.C. continued a lawsuit against Meta, arguing it cut off nascent competitors by buying Instagram and WhatsApp, and sued to block Microsoft’s blockbuster $69 billion deal for the video game publisher Activision Blizzard.
Inside the World of Big Tech
- Google: The internet giant was charged with violating E.U. antitrust laws in its online advertising practices, in the latest in a string of cases around the world that strike at the core of Google’s business model.
- Meta: Mark Zuckerberg explained in an internal all-hands meeting how he hoped to get the company back on track after a rocky year.
- Apple: The company introduced new high-tech goggles that blend the real world with virtual reality. The $3,500 device, called the Vision Pro, faces a skeptical consumer market and competition from others.
- Twitter: Linda Yaccarino, NBCUniversal’s advertising chief, is set to become the face of the company after she was selected as its chief executive by Elon Musk.
Ms. Khan has yet to bring the kind of sweeping antitrust case against Amazon that the company’s critics demand. The F.T.C.’s antitrust bureau has been investigating Amazon’s practices for years and observers are closely watching how she will move forward with their findings.
The lawsuit is part of a larger effort by regulators to limit the power of tech giants including Amazon, Apple, Google, Microsoft and Meta, Facebook’s parent company. The Department of Justice has in recent years filed multiple antitrust cases against Google.
Amazon has recently settled cases with the F.T.C. that began before Ms. Khan’s tenure. The company agreed to pay $25 million last month to settle F.T.C. claims that Amazon’s Alexa home assistant devices had illegally collected children’s data. The agency also settled another privacy case with Amazon’s Ring home security subsidiary.
Amazon Prime has for years attracted subscribers with promises of free expedited shipping, access to a streaming video library and other benefits. In 2021, the company said that it had more than 200 million members in the program, which costs $139 a year. Customers last year spent $35 billion on Amazon subscriptions, primarily Prime memberships, according to the company’s financial disclosures.
On Wednesday, the F.T.C. said that Amazon had made it particularly difficult to purchase a product in its store without also subscribing to Prime while checking out. The agency said Amazon made it hard for consumers to find the page that allowed them to cancel the service. Once they did find it, Amazon bombarded them with offers intended to make them change their mind.
The lawsuit follows years of media and activist attention on how hard it is to cancel Prime. In a 2021 complaint to the District of Columbia attorney general, the Electronic Privacy Information Center, an advocacy group, said that Amazon had used manipulative designs to “frustrate the intentions of users who intend to cancel their Amazon Prime subscriptions.”
The F.T.C. has recently pledged to crack down on designs meant to nudge consumers or confound their efforts to cancel a service.
“While dark patterns may manipulate consumers in stealth, these practices are squarely on the F.T.C.’s radar,” the agency said in a 2022 report.
Critics consider Prime central to Amazon’s dominance because it keeps customers inside the company’s retail store by offering them other perks, like access to Amazon streaming exclusives such as “Tom Clancy’s Jack Ryan” and “The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power.”
Amazon has said that Prime provides benefits for consumers. When the company lobbied in recent years against reforms to antitrust laws focused on the tech giants, it regularly told lawmakers and the media that the changes would hobble Prime.
David McCabe covers tech policy. He joined The Times from Axios in 2019.
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