Jury selection began Monday in a US government lawsuit accusing e-commerce giant Amazon of using tricks to enroll millions of customers into its Prime subscription service and then making it nearly impossible to cancel.
Opening remarks by rival attorneys were slated for Tuesday, with witness testimony to follow.
The Federal Trade Commission’s complaint, filed in June 2023, alleges that Amazon knowingly used designs known as “dark patterns” to trick consumers into signing up for the $139-per-year Prime service during checkouts.
The case centers on two main allegations: that Amazon enrolled customers without clear consent through confusing checkout processes, and that it created a deliberately complex cancellation system internally nicknamed “Iliad” — after Homer’s epic about the long, arduous Trojan War.
US District Court Judge John Chun last week ruled that Amazon violated an online shopper protection law by collecting Prime subscriber billing information before disclosing terms of the service, according to excerpts of the ruling shared on X, formerly Twitter.
The summary judgement by Chun puts Amazon at a disadvantage for the trial before Chun in his Seattle courtroom.
Chun is also presiding over a separate FTC case that accuses Amazon of running an illegal monopoly, with that case due to go to trial in 2027.
