A judge ruled on Wednesday that Amazon had breached consumer protection law by collecting the billing data of Prime subscribers before revealing the terms of the service, which gave the U.S. Federal Trade Commission a partial victory.
The case against Amazon over alleged deceptive practices related to creating Prime subscriptions was decided in favor of the company by U.S. District Judge John Chun, placing the company in a favorable position during its trial.
In the upcoming trial, the FTC will argue that Amazon enrolled tens of millions of customers in Prime without permission and suppressed tens of millions of cancellation requests using complicated schemes.
According to the agency, the acts were against the Restore Online Shoppers’ Confidence Act (ROSCA).
Chris Mufarrige, head of the FTC’s bureau of consumer protection, states, “Today’s decision affirms that Amazon defrauded American consumers by failing to disclose all terms of prime before collecting consumer’s payment information.” He further added that, “The Trump-Vance FTC intends to make them whole.”
The judge also ruled that, during the upcoming trial, two Amazon executives would be liable for any infractions the FTC can demonstrate. The judge further prevented Amazon from claiming that ROSCA could not be applied to Prime signups.
