Amazon to Drop Prime Cancellation Dark Patterns in Europe
Natasha Lomas (via Slashdot):
The coordinated complaints about Amazon’s confusing and convoluted cancellation process for Prime were announced back in April 2021 — so it’s taken just over a year for the e-commerce giant to agree to change its ways.
Following the engagement with EU regulators, the Commission said today that Amazon started to make some revisions to the Prime web interface — such as labelling the cancel button more clearly and shortening the explanatory text — but today’s announcement is that it has agreed to further simplify the experience by further reducing the text so consumers do not get distracted by warnings and deterred from cancelling.
There’s a video showing the steps.
Previously:
4 Comments RSS · Twitter
I've cancelled Amazon Prime a few times here in the EU and they do keep sending you to an 'Are you Sure' page but it was nowhere near as bad as trying to book a flight with Ryanair where the dark patters are so extreme it's actually like playing a text adventure game where danger is around every corner.
Every time I have to book with them, my opinion of them drops yet further but they have a near monopoly on the flights I need and so they get away with it again and again.
I went through the six step process just last week. As always I try to imagine what it must be like to be on the "make users experience awful" team.
As a user
I want to read about the prime benefits
So that I can reconsider my cancellation
Deceptive acceptance criteria leading to dark patterns.
