31–40 of 191 posts
The actual win isn't the fine, it's > and cease unlawful enrollment and cancellation practices for Prime. which thank god, Amazon deserves to be in the hall of fame for their multiple beg screens.
It is two screens, three clicks - not hard at all. https://www.amazon.com/mm/pipeline/cancellation https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ddxPcnMG0fE
Earlier quoted context omitted.
This is the resolution of a years-old FTC case against Amazon, which included an internal program called "Project Iliad" to lower cancellation rates by increasing the number of steps involved, among other things. The cancellation process has changed between the initial filing and now.
But it was never as bad as for most telecoms.
The actual win isn't the fine, it's > and cease unlawful enrollment and cancellation practices for Prime. which thank god, Amazon deserves to be in the hall of fame for their multiple beg screens.
It is two screens, three clicks - not hard at all. https://www.amazon.com/mm/pipeline/cancellation https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ddxPcnMG0fE
On both .com and AWS, Amazon is reaching a stage of maturity where they’re running out of new customers. While still a fan of both, they’re both getting annoying as innovation slows and they get more annoying with a focus on doing things to make your use “sticky” vs making you trip over yourself to buy something because it’s great.
Amazon is full of counterfeit or low quality junk that one needs to navigate. AWS is muddling things with far too many random services thrown at the wall vs just being really good at a few core things. In today competitive environment account teams can’t really explain why we should use AWS apart from “we’re AWS” which is again an answer from a company aging into more stagnating maturity.
The fine, while more than a rounding error, is still small. However it will hopefully help cut down on some of Amazon’s more annoying behaviors.
> harmed by their deceptive Prime enrollment practices I'm still confused by this part. I didn't use Prime for a long time. I remember lots of buttons inviting me to sign up, just like YouTube asks me weekly if I want to subscribe to premium. But I don't remember anything seemingly deceptive, and none of the news articles seem to actually provide any details. So what precisely was deceptive? And even the cancellation…
This is the resolution of a years-old FTC case against Amazon, which included an internal program called "Project Iliad" to lower cancellation rates by increasing the number of steps involved, among other things. The cancellation process has changed between the initial filing and now.
I'd hope that they fixed this. If an account is locked, it seems like it would be common sense to place a hold on any subscriptions associated with it.
The proposed remedy seems fine. What stuck out to me is the "Trump-Vance" attribution: I haven't seen something like that since the election.
Edit: A search reveals that this was apparently controversial at the time: https://www.politico.com/news/2024/06/21/biden-infrastructur.... The shamelessness of "Trump-Vance" here funny.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
This is the resolution of a years-old FTC case against Amazon, which included an internal program called "Project Iliad" to lower cancellation rates by increasing the number of steps involved, among other things. The cancellation process has changed between the initial filing and now.
But it was never as bad as for most telecoms.
I can think of a lot of membership and subscription services that have been far harder to cancel that I wish the FTC would do something about. A few extra clicks to cancel Prime is nothing in comparison to the gauntlet required to cancel some gym memberships. I remember a story where someone forgot to cancel their gym membership before moving across the country but the gym's policy required that you cancel in-person at the gym. They had to pay the monthly fee until their next trip back home, then lose an hour traveling to the gym to fill out the cancellation paperwork.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I’ve never heard of legalshield. What’s their deal?
You have to email them to cancel
Earlier quoted context omitted.
This is the resolution of a years-old FTC case against Amazon, which included an internal program called "Project Iliad" to lower cancellation rates by increasing the number of steps involved, among other things. The cancellation process has changed between the initial filing and now.
you'd think they'd have better opsec then to let the nefarious purpose of the project be openly referenced by the title.
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The name “Project Iliad” is almost certainly a reference to Homer’s Iliad, the ancient Greek epic poem about the Trojan War.
The connection works as a kind of corporate in-joke or metaphor:
The Iliad is long, complex, and arduous — much like the cancellation process Amazon designed. By naming the project after an epic full of prolonged struggle, the team was signaling (perhaps ironically) that customers would have to endure an "epic battle" just to cancel.
Conflict and attrition are central to the Iliad’s story. The war drags on, wearing down opponents. In Amazon’s context, Project Iliad’s design was to wear down users’ will to cancel through friction.