FTC & Lina Khan goes after Amazon

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So, yep, the FTC has put Amazon again in the crosshairs. Lena Kahn, who we’ve talked about here on the podcast and the radio show, she’s almost like a cross between Glenn Close and Fatal Attraction and Ann Wilkes from the movie Misery. Talk about obsessed.

This woman is obsessed with Amazon going back to her college days. And it’s the reason why she got the job at the FTC in the first place, because she wrote a paper saying, Amazon is bad, okay? And it wasn’t based upon, it wasn’t based upon the consumer and whether or not the consumer benefited from Amazon. It was about supposedly future competition and whatever.

Whatever, so now they’re going after Amazon because they’re saying that Amazon duped millions of customers, millions of their customers into enrolling in Amazon Prime, what’s it, about $140 a year. They’ve got 200 million members worldwide. And again, I mean, it’s without a doubt. I mean, I think it’s bloody fantastic.

I love the service, I use it all the time. I actually more often than not now. Like I said, I don’t like going to stores I used to go to. I don’t like having to find somebody to unlock the deodorant when I need one at CVS or Walgreens. Anyway, anyway, she says, or the FTC is saying, Amazon tricked and trapped people into re-

recurring subscriptions without their consent, frustrating users, but also costing them significant money. Okay, manipulative, coercive, or deceptive user interface designs known as dark patterns. I haven’t heard this one. This is new to me, dark patterns.

Christopher Markowski (02:27.406)

It’s a term for design tactics that prompt users into actions that benefit the company but not necessarily the user. Isn’t it kind of what advertising is? I remember back in grade 7th grade, we were doing a thing on advertising. Holy cow. It’s coming back to me. Mr. Bayes’ social studies class, 7th grade, Farnsworth Middle School.

and we did this whole thing with subliminal advertising where you’d have these little pictures. We’d find these little pictures inside an ice cube and a glass of black velvet. Remember those ads that they had? Again, this is going way, way back and cigarette manufacturers and how they put subliminal ads in there. Your brain picks up on this stuff and makes you want to buy, buy. Anyway, anyway, dark patterns.

Um, I find it kind of fascinating. I, I do, um, you know, Amazon prime is pretty straightforward. Again, I’m trying to get a statement out of Amazon. They haven’t put one out yet in this case, but again, you’ve got an FTC here in this country that is on the war path. They’re on the war path. And listen, I talk about this all the time about the need to break up.

monopolies, true monopolies that we have there. But the true monopolies that we have are companies that are working hand in hand with the government. And we talk about that in terms of regulatory capture. I mean, banks, for example, too big to fail. I mean, that seems to me a much bigger issue. You know, the FTC really should go after some things. I mean, think about all of the fraud and crime that goes on that’s targeting senior citizens that we talk about all the time.

Um, we have clients that they ask questions, they call up. I, you know, I got a call from Amazon and they said that I had to do this, and this, someone got my card. It’s not Amazon. It’s some con artists out there. Um, there’s plenty of them and, um, nothing really ever seems to get done. Uh, with this and all of these scams, but we’re going after Amazon now because they dark patterns, they’re tricking people.

They’re using the force to get people to sign up for Amazon Prime. Anyway, Watchdog on wallstreet.com.