Microsoft Australia Refunds for Office/Copilot Dark Pattern
Nassim Khadem (via Diego Barros):
Microsoft has apologised to customers and said it will refund them, after the consumer watchdog alleged the tech giant misled about 2.7 million Australians over subscription costs so they would remain on more expensive plans.
[…]
Announcing the court action last week, the consumer watchdog slammed Microsoft for the conduct, alleging it “deliberately hid” a subscription option from Australian customers and said it would be seeking a penalty that would deter similar behaviour from other firms.
[…]
Following the integration of Microsoft’s AI feature, Copilot, the company increased the annual subscription price of its Microsoft 365 personal plan by 45 per cent from $109 to $159.
[…]
The ACCC alleged that since October 31, 2024, Microsoft had told these subscribers with auto-renewal enabled that to maintain their subscription, they “must accept the integration of Copilot and pay higher prices for their plan, or, alternatively, cancel their subscription”.
Your correspondent, who has a personal account for M365, tried to find info about Classic mode by re-subscribing to the service. I saw dialog boxes reading, “I don’t want my subscription,” and “I want to keep my benefits”, but no info about a Classic version.
That’s a classic “dark pattern” – a deliberately confusing or complex process that vendors use to steer customers towards the things they want them to buy, instead of presenting a comprehensive menu of choices.
[…]
Microsoft also sent its January price rise advice to subscribers in Malaysia, Singapore, Taiwan, and Thailand. We’ve asked if the company plans to issue apologies in those nations, too, but haven’t received a response at the time of writing.
Previously:
- Forcing Copilot AI
- Opting Out of Microsoft 365’s Copilot AI
- U.S. Sues Adobe Over Subscriptions
- Microsoft 365 Copilot
3 Comments RSS · Twitter · Mastodon
It is ironic that this would have been completely legal if they had just scrapped the old classic non-AI subscription entirely. It's only because they did keep it but hid it that they got in to trouble.
@Peter but then it would have been completely and undeniably obvious what they were doing. They thought they could have it both ways by doing this.
They purposefully, knowingly did this to trick the vast majority of users into paying more. While also having plausible deniability to regulators by saying “but we still offer a Classic subscription so actually we aren’t raising prices or forcing users to do anything.”
It’s this kind of corporate doublespeak that makes people doubt everything they say and do. People think I’m cynical but it’s just because I’ve sat here for decades watching companies just straight up lie.
Their true motives are absolutely not what they say they are, and assuming that that is the case is the definition of cynicism. Well, they keep proving me right, so is it really cynical?
