Amazon has agreed to a historic $2.5 billion settlement with the Federal Trade Commission after accusations that the company tricked customers into enrolling in its Prime memberships.

The surprise settlement comes just days after the trial began in U.S. District Court in Seattle this week.

Amazon’s FTC settlement

By the numbers:

The Seattle-based company will pay $1 billion in civil penalties — the largest fine in FTC history — and $1.5 billion to customers who were unintentionally enrolled in Prime, or were deterred from canceling their subscriptions, the FTC says.

The backstory:

The FTC began looking into Amazon’s Prime subscription practices in 2021 during the first Trump administration, but the lawsuit was filed in 2023 under former FTC Chair Lina Khan, an antitrust expert who

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