A Trial Over Trust: Did Amazon Betray Its Customers for Profit?

A federal trial against Amazon has begun that ultimately revolves around a single, powerful concept: trust. The U.S. government is arguing that the company betrayed the trust of millions of its customers by using deceptive practices to lock them into its Prime service for profit.
The Federal Trade Commission alleges that Amazon exploited the trust users place in its platform by deploying “dark patterns” at checkout. These designs, the government claims, took advantage of customers’ assumptions and quick-clicking habits to generate “nonconsensual enrollments.”
The betrayal of trust, the FTC argues, continued with the “Iliad” cancellation process. Customers who trusted that unsubscribing would be a simple process were instead met with a deliberately confusing and frustrating maze, a tactic the government calls an illegal breach of fair dealing.
This case is part of a broader societal conversation about the responsibilities of powerful tech companies. The FTC is seeking to establish that these companies have a legal duty not to betray the trust of their users through manipulative design.
Amazon’s defense is a direct rebuttal of this claim. The company will argue that its success is built on a foundation of customer trust and that the Prime service is a clear embodiment of that. Its lawyers will contend that the FTC’s allegations paint a false picture of a company that has always put its customers first.