Washington, D.C. — In response to news that the Federal Trade Commission has named three Amazon executives in an amended complaint against the company’s use of deceptive patterns to make it near-impossible for users to unsubscribe from Amazon Prime, the American Economic Liberties Project released the following statement.

“With this action to hold Amazon executives personally accountable for unfair and deceptive practices, the FTC has now made it clear that it will enforce the law against executives at dominant firms, and not just at small companies that have no power or pull in Washington,” said Matt Stoller, Director of Research at the American Economic Liberties Project. “Laws are not suggestions.”

As the FTC’s complaint details, Amazon employed a “Four-Page, Six-Click, Fifteen-Option Iliad Cancellation Process” for cancelling Prime. The process for ending a Prime subscription, which indeed did amount to an ancient philosophy nightmare, trapped consumers even as Amazon degraded the product. The updated complaint reveals that these three executives not only knew about this practice, “slowed, avoided, and even reversed user experience changes that they knew would reduce nonconsensual enrollment because those changes would also negatively affect Amazon’s bottom line.”

An Economic Liberties fact sheet reveals that as Amazon has become more dominant, it has consistently raised prices for its services. Most recently, Prime Membership increased from $119 to $139 in February 2022 (up from $99 in 2014). Amazon also now takes more than an average 50% cut of each merchant sale – Amazon third-party seller fees have risen for six years in a row, squeezing their margins.

But higher prices and merchant fees have not translated to better service for consumers. Amazon is also taking longer and longer to ship consumers their goods, with reports from May 2023 suggesting that Amazon has axed Prime 2 day shipping.

Learn more about Economic Liberties here.

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The American Economic Liberties Project works to ensure America’s system of commerce is structured to advance, rather than undermine, economic liberty, fair commerce, and a secure, inclusive democracy. Economic Liberties believes true economic liberty means entrepreneurs and businesses large and small succeed on the merits of their ideas and hard work; commerce empowers consumers, workers, farmers, and engineers instead of subjecting them to discrimination and abuse from financiers and monopolists; foreign trade arrangements support domestic security and democracy; and wealth is broadly distributed to support equitable political power.