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Arizona accuses Amazon of being a monopoly and deceiving consumers with “dark patterns” (www.theverge.com)

submitted 5 months ago by ForgottenFlux@lemmy.world to c/technology@lemmy.world

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Arizona's Attorney General, Kris Mayes, filed two lawsuits against Amazon on Wednesday for allegedly engaging in deceptive business practices and maintaining monopoly status. The first lawsuit accuses the company of using dark patterns to keep users from canceling their Amazon Prime subscriptions, violating Arizona's Consumer Fraud Act. This is similar to a complaint filed by the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) against Amazon in June.
The second lawsuit alleges that Amazon unfairly maintains its monopoly status through agreements with third-party sellers that restrict them from offering lower prices off of the platform than they do on Amazon, violating Arizona's Uniform State Antitrust Act. This practice has also been targeted by other state attorneys general in cases filed against Amazon.
Additionally, the lawsuit accuses Amazon's Buy Box algorithm of being biased towards first-party retail offers or sellers who participate in Fulfillment By Amazon, leading consumers to overpay for items that are available at lower prices from other sellers on Amazon. This aspect is also reflected in the FTC's recent antitrust lawsuit against Amazon, which has been joined by more than a dozen state attorneys general.
Arizona seeks to stop Amazon from engaging in these allegedly deceptive and anticompetitive practices and award civil penalties and disgorgement of ill-gotten gains.

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[–] rockSlayer@lemmy.world 55 points 5 months ago (1 children)

about damn time a company was targeted in a lawsuit over dark patterns.

[–] ForgotAboutDre@lemmy.world 19 points 5 months ago

It really should be fraud. It is deception used for personal gain. While I think it should be fraud, it will probably need new legislation to make it so.