It’s time for Amazon to pay for Prime’s crimes against design

The Federal Trade Commission decided to hit Amazon with a lawsuit for the company’s use of “dark patterns,” the evil magic tricks that use behavioral science principles to design user experiences that manipulate consumers. If you ever found yourself in a maze of screens, menus, and coercive messages seemingly designed by Satan himself, you know what I’m talking about. If not, try to cancel your Amazon Prime subscription and you’ll see what I mean.

That’s exactly why the FTC is suing the polystyrene beads out of Jeff Bezos’s empire. The FTC is accusing Amazon of using deceptive design strategies to ensnare consumers in its Prime subscription service. The case alleges two UX sins: First, that Amazon manipulated people into signing up for a Prime subscription by making it confusing or difficult to complete purchases without a subscription. Second, Amazon makes it exceedingly difficult for users to cancel a subscription—a concept Chris Nodder, a UX consultant and author of the book Evil by Design, calls the “roach motel” because “you can get in but you can’t get out,” as he described to me over email.

The lawsuit is not just a battle against the web retail giant, but the first salvo of the upcoming war against the deceptive, arm-twisting practices that have plagued online marketplaces and businesses for way too long. As  Jeffrey Roberts, a partner at future markets firm Dive Without Fear, tells me: “The FTC announced in late 2021 that they would be taking a stronger position against dark-patterns usage in e-commerce, so I’m not surprised to see enforcement action.”

Subscriptions have boomed in the last 10 to 15 years. Many people are subscribed to at least one good or service (in fact, there are more streaming contracts than people in America). Apple and Microsoft depend on subscriptions for a large chunk of their revenue. Professional software from Adobe and a galaxy of phone apps work through subscriptions, too. Even car makers do it: BMW sells an $18-per-month service for heating its seats.

To avoid losing those lucrative contracts, many companies do everything in their power to avoid cancellation, says Harry Brignull, founder of the Deceptive Patterns initiative. They use deceptive design tactics that are all about resource depletion: “It’s just wearing out your consumer,” he says. “Instead of making it one step, make it ten steps, and make the steps hard to find.” He adds that companies can further complicate matters by introducing loops of information where people click on a link and then land on a page with more links. “Basically you can create a maze—a really long corridor,” he says.

Amazing tricksters

Prime’s subscription cancellation process can best be described as labyrinthine. It’s so notorious that Amazon actually gave the user flow a name: the Iliad Flow. The Wall Street Journal reports that the FTC discovered that Amazon created a “four-page, six-click, fifteen-option cancellation process” and named it after the massive Homeric poem, adding that the company changed the experience for some subscribers in April, “shortly before the FTC filed the case.” The FTC claims in the lawsuit that Amazon knew its policies were “legally indefensible.”

The so-called Iliad Flow is designed as a series of convoluted screens meant to confuse and frustrate consumers, as described by Mark Cooper, a senior fellow at the Consumer Federation of America. Cooper cites a meticulously documented analysis by the Norwegian Consumer Council bluntly titled: “Amazon manipulates customers to stay subscribed.” 

Amazon deploys a few tried-and-true deceitful design patterns to achieve that manipulation. When people first attempt to cancel their Amazon Prime subscription, they are presented with a snake oil salesman screen that highlights the benefits they will lose out on if they leave: “Free shipping! All this video! Free music! Gaming! Flash offers! Did we mention free shipping? Yes, free shipping!” Inducing FOMO is a classic dark pattern known as triggering fear.

If users say Yes, I do want to cancel, they will be led through a series of screens with multiple options (if you would expect a straightforward path to cancellation, you are high on Amazon cardboard fumes). Instead, users enter a bait-and-switch UX convention where they are bombarded with options to pause the subscription or switch to a lower-cost plan. The actual option to continue with the cancellation is often displayed in a less-prominent position, making it easy to overlook.

But even when consumers choose, yet again, to continue with the cancellation, Amazon doesn’t relent. The next screen employs scare tactics, warning the user of the imminent loss of benefits. This is another UX maneuver known as the illusion of control, where the user is made to feel that they are making a grave mistake and they can avoid doom and gloom by making a different decision.

Once people wade through this Amazonian temple of traps and find the final cancellation button, it is grayed out—an obvious deceptive tactic to make people think that the option is unavailable and provide them with one more chance to second-guess their decision.

The FTC lawsuit is a warning call

According to Roberts, this lawsuit was a long time coming and a bold move, given Amazon’s prominence. He believes that the agency must have engaged in significant consideration before proceeding. 

Still, it’s not clear whether the lawsuit will ever reach the courtroom. Roberts believes the case will be settled because otherwise Amazon will find itself in a vulnerable position: “If the action were to make it to a courtroom, dark patterns are easily explained to a judge or jury. Anyone who has ever bought anything online has experienced similar, less-nefarious, designs,” he says. “The click here to save x%, the added charges not evident until checkout, the induced urgency of countdown clocks; similar design approaches are everywhere. The approach and style are easy to explain because they’re so common.”

One could assume that a jury might be eager to administer some heavy punishment on a company that is actively duping the average American.

The flip side of that argument, Nodder says, is that the FTC’s burden of proof is quite high for showing that Amazon’s design was intentionally deceptive. “The issue here is that in a courtroom, when you see the interface laid out step by step it might not seem so terrible,” he says. “But in real life when you’re rushing to buy something—especially on a tiny mobile screen—the purposefully small terms and conditions text seems to disappear into the background, if you even scroll that far down the page.” The FTC will have to demonstrate that in real life the confusing checkout process made people sign up for Prime unintentionally.

“The roach motel pattern might be harder for the FTC to prosecute,” he adds. Amazon can argue that consumers can simply unsubscribe with only five clicks. But as Nodder points out, “This argument is a little bit disingenuous because those five clicks are surrounded by much more prominent user-interface elements that are designed to distract you from your task, or make you think you’ve achieved it prematurely.”

The case doesn’t need to be litigated to have an impact, Roberts contends. This lawsuit is not just about Amazon but about setting a precedent, warning the industry that deceptive practices will not be tolerated. The online marketplace is rife with dark patterns, and Amazon is not the only culprit. Basically, every major company you visit on the web uses them, from Apple to Facebook to Microsoft, but even unusual suspects like The New York Times are guilty, too.

“It will spur other companies to audit their platforms for similar issues,” Roberts says. “Customer experience design, particularly in e-comm, is largely an effort to increase sales. It becomes a problem when these efforts become deliberately ambiguous or actively confusing.”

Additional reporting by Elissaveta Brandon.