So, for example, the FTC says Amazon's website would bombard shoppers with ways to sign up for Prime, but options to shop without Prime would be hard to spot. One example is making it hard to compare your options. SELYUKH: So regulators call it dark patterns, which is a dramatic industry term. And this lawsuit posits some of them maybe were gained in sneaky ways. As of two years ago, Amazon had 200 million Prime subscribers globally. And, you know, Prime - it's kind of the heart of Amazon's retail business.
And then these subscriptions would automatically renew costing people $15 a month or $139 a year. SELYUKH: So they say Amazon for years used, quote, "manipulative, coercive or deceptive tactics," designing its platform to get people to sign up for Prime even if they maybe didn't fully want to. KELLY: OK, so what exactly are regulators accusing Amazon of doing? I will also note NPR's Alina Selyukh is here to tell us more about today's lawsuit.
I want to note Amazon is among NPR's financial supporters, but we cover them like any other company. The Federal Trade Commission is accusing the tech giant of tricking people into buying Prime subscriptions and making them purposefully hard to cancel. Amazon is facing a federal lawsuit over Prime memberships.