Overview

• Jury selection began Monday with opening arguments Tuesday in Seattle, where nine jurors will hear a roughly monthlong case over Amazon’s Prime enrollment and cancellation practices.
• The FTC alleges Amazon used dark patterns to enroll users without clear consent and deployed an internal, multi-page “Iliad” flow that made canceling harder than signing up.
• Judge John Chun ruled that key provisions of the Restore Online Shoppers’ Confidence Act apply and found Amazon collected billing information before disclosing Prime’s terms.
• Two senior executives, Neil Lindsay and Jamil Ghani, could be held personally liable if the jury finds violations, while Amazon denies wrongdoing and says it has improved its processes.
• Regulators cite an estimate that about 40 million consumers were enrolled without consent and are seeking damages, civil penalties that can reach $53,000 per violation, and injunctions to change Amazon’s designs.