What happened

Amazon has settled a lawsuit over allegations it tricked customers into signing up for Prime membership and made it too onerous to end their subscriptions, the Federal Trade Commission announced Thursday. Amazon agreed to pay a $1 billion civil penalty and up to $1.5 billion in refunds to an estimated 35 million affected customers.

Who said what

Amazon relied on “sophisticated subscription traps designed to manipulate consumers into enrolling in Prime,” then “made it exceedingly hard” to cancel , FTC Chair Andrew Ferguson said. An Amazon spokesperson said the e-commerce giant had “always followed the law” and could now “move forward and focus on innovating for customers.” The company did not admit or deny wrongdoing in the settlement.

The “historic” settlement, one o

See Full Page