Sixteen consumer advocacy organizations in Europe and the United States are jointly calling for regulatory scrutiny of Amazon’s practices regarding Prime subscription cancellations, alleging the process is intentionally made difficult for users.

Norway’s Consumer Council (NCC) has released a report detailing what it characterizes as Amazon’s “manipulative” and “unduly complicated” procedures for ending a Prime membership. The report is titled, with deliberate wordplay, ‘You can log out, but you can never leave.’

“The process for ending a subscription should be just as straightforward as the process for beginning one. Amazon should prioritize a positive user experience rather than obstructing customers and misleading them into maintaining services they no longer require or desire,” stated Finn Lützow-Holm Myrstad, director of digital policy at NCC.

“We believe this approach not only undermines consumer confidence and expectations but also contravenes European legal standards,” he further explained.

The Prime subscription is a vital component of Amazon’s business model, consistently generating recurring revenue and incentivizing customers to make further purchases through the appeal of unlimited ‘free’ expedited shipping (available for select items on the marketplace).

Amazon also enhances Prime membership with additional benefits such as access to streaming movies, television programs, music, and games, alongside exclusive shopping events and discounts (the specific offerings differ depending on the region).  

However, the complaints suggest a deliberate effort to retain subscribers when they attempt to cancel, as Amazon reportedly requires users to navigate numerous menus, choose from ambiguously phrased options, and bypass various distractions and unnecessary content before locating the actual cancellation button.  

Notably, this is the same company that secured a patent for a ‘1-click’ button designed to facilitate quick and easy consumer spending…

The NCC has created a video demonstrating the various tactics Amazon employs to discourage Prime subscribers from canceling, including an unexplained cartoon depiction of a barking dog.

Consumer groups from Denmark, France, Germany, Greece, Switzerland, Norway, and the US are submitting complaints regarding Amazon’s multi-step Prime cancellation process, invoking a range of national and regional consumer protection laws.

The NCC’s complaint, for instance, cites Norway’s Marketing Control Act – which implements the EU’s Unfair Commercial Practices Directive – as establishing guidelines for “acceptable marketing, commercial practices, and terms of service for service providers in various markets”, as detailed in the complaint.

“Section 6 of the Marketing Control Act implements the general clause in Article 5 of the Directive, which prohibits unfair commercial practices. The definition of an unfair commercial practice, as outlined in the second paragraph of section 6, states that a practice is unfair if it violates ‘good business practices’ towards consumers and is capable of significantly influencing a consumer’s financial decisions, leading them to make a choice they would not otherwise have made,” the NCC contends.

Certain complaints will take the form of letters to consumer protection agencies, requesting investigations. In the US, the FTC will be asked to “examine Amazon’s practices and determine if they violate Section 5 of the FTC Act”.

In Germany, the VZBV consumer protection agency stated it is currently evaluating Amazon’s Prime cancellation process – which it acknowledged “differs somewhat” from the one detailed in the Norwegian complaints – and is still considering whether to pursue a court injunction.

“Unlike the other consumer organizations involved in this coordinated effort, we are not submitting complaints to authorities,” a VZBV spokesperson clarified. “The Federation of German Consumer Organisations (vzbv), my employer, has the authority to issue legal warnings and, if demands to cease and desist are unmet, to directly sue companies that violate consumer protection laws. We will take such action if the case demonstrates sufficient legal grounds. However, a final decision has not yet been reached.”

Amazon was contacted for a response to the complaints concerning the Prime unsubscribe process and maintained that it does not intentionally make cancellation unclear or difficult, asserting that it can be completed with “just a few clicks” online or “a brief phone call”.

Their complete statement is as follows:

Consumer groups uniting to pressure technology companies to modify questionable practices is a recurring trend. For example, in 2018, several European groups filed coordinated complaints against Google’s ‘deceptive’ collection of location data. Approximately a year ago, the Irish Data Protection Commission initiated a formal investigation – which is still in progress.