Record fine for Amazon following a report by the Norwegian Consumer Council

26. september, 2025

Amazon has been ordered to pay a record fine of 2.5 billion dollars after consumer organizations in Europe and the United States filed complaints against the company based on a report from the Norwegian Consumer Council. The report revealed how Amazon deliberately made it difficult for customers to cancel their Amazon Prime subscriptions.

Amazon has reached a historic settlement with the U.S. Federal Trade Commission (FTC), agreeing to pay 2.5 billion dollars after the European umbrella organizations BEUC and the Transatlantic Consumer Dialogue (TACD) filed coordinated complaints against the company in 2021. Of the total fine, 1.5 billion dollars will be refunded directly to consumers.

– This outcome is clear evidence that strong transatlantic cooperation works. The FTC has done an impressive job, says Finn Myrstad, Director of Digital Policy at the Norwegian Consumer Council.

Easy to sign up, hard to cancel

The complaints were based on the Norwegian Consumer Council’s report You can log out, but you can never leave. The report scrutinized Amazon Prime’s cancellation process and found that consumers wanting to cancel their subscriptions faced a series of obstacles — including complicated menus, confusing choices, and repeated “nudging”.

Throughout the process, Amazon manipulated users through wording and user interface design, making the cancellation process unnecessarily difficult and frustrating to complete.

Follow-up needed

– All over the internet, consumers are subjected to similar practices. They lose money and are forced to give away more personal data than they wish. This decision must now be followed up: similar rules must be incorporated into the EU’s upcoming Digital Fairness Act and reinforced by new FTC regulations in the United States, Myrstad says.