Amazon to settle Prime claims for $2.5 billion

The agreement comes days into a trial over a suit alleging company tricked customers.

- QUEENIE WONG

GENE J. PUSKAR Associated Press. AN AMAZON Prime driver makes a delivery outside an apartment building in Pittsburgh in March.

Amazon has agreed to pay $2.5 billion to settle accusations it tricked millions of customers into subscribing to Prime and made it tough for them to cancel.

Under the settlement — one of the largest to come out of a Federal Trade Commission case — Amazon will pay up to $51 each to eligible customers.

In the lawsuit, first filed by the FTC in 2023, the agency accused Amazon of duping people into automatically renewing their Amazon Prime subscriptions through “manipulative, coercive, or deceptive user-interface designs.” Amazon also made it complicated for people to end their membership, the lawsuit said.

A trial over the lawsuit, filed under the Biden administration, kicked off in Seattle this week. The settlement, announced on Thursday, is the latest example of how the federal government has been trying to rein in the power wielded by Big Tech.

“Today, we are putting billions of dollars back into Americans’ pockets, and making sure Amazon never does this again,” FTC Chairman Andrew Ferguson said in a statement. “The Trump-Vance FTC is committed to fighting back when companies try to cheat ordinary Americans out of their hard-earned pay.”

Amazon didn’t admit guilt by agreeing to the settlement.