The pain of unsubscribing from Amazon Prime is over – at least if you live in Europe.
There is definitely strength in numbers. From now on, consumers from EU and countries European Economic Zone (European Economic Area) can Unsubscribe from Amazon Prime With just two clicks, with a clear and obvious ‘Cancel button’.
Compare this to the previous process which involved several steps like these:
How did the change happen?
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All thanks to intense lobbying by consumer organizations in the European Union and the European Economic Area. They brilliantly composed a report titled 2021”You can sign out, but you can never leave. ”
Why is canceling Amazon Prime such a pain in the ass?
The report describes the Amazon Prime account cancellation process as “laden with a mixture of manipulative design techniques, known as ‘dark patterns’ – interfaces designed to trick you.”
In other words, consumers who want to leave the service face many obstacles. These include complex navigation menus, skewed wording, confusing choices, and repetitive alerts. This process is violated EU rules on consumer protection It aims to limit Big Tech’s control over individual consumers.
Unfortunately, despite being home to these same impractical practices, there is no obligation to change the opt-out process in the US – but here’s a step-by-step process for opting out Subscription.
After that, auto-renewal – please?
In the US, there’s a movement around annoying auto-renewing subscriptions. They can let you pay for the product months after the initial free trial, unless you cancel the subscription.
More than 20 countries Passed automatic renewal laws. For example, from the beginning of this month, companies sell automatic renewal plans to California consumers Annual subscriptions must send reminders 15 to 45 days before the renewal date to remind them to auto-renew, unless canceled.
But while state laws are advancing, there is no federal legislation.
This means that the US national consumer law is now much behind the European Union, in particular Germanywhich introduced a robust consumer protection subscriber law earlier this year.
In 2019, a group of American politicians Submit a bill In the year 2019. It is called Unsubscribe Law, and will enforce national regulations. But it has not yet moved through the channels needed to vote.
Oddly enough, some of the biggest proponents of consumer law are too visa And the Master Card Credit Cardwhich imposed strict requirements on merchants in response to customer complaints and lawsuits.
This week reinforces the strength of the EU/EEA as a collective critical bloc when it comes to consumer protection. It is doubtful whether US consumer protection will ever be able to achieve parity as countries pick up a recession. Therefore, many clients leave the fight against individual companies and resort to lawsuits.
