The Federal Trade Commission and Amazon reached a $2.5 billion settlement regarding the agency’s complaint over cancellation practices for Amazon Prime. While this case may be closed, there is another case against LA Fitness focused on the same topic. The agency’s efforts on this front show how antitrust can go astray by lumping vastly different consumer experiences under the same umbrella.
The Amazon case was not the only effort to address membership cancellations. The agency also pushed for “click-to-cancel” rules last year, which were meant to simplify how consumers escape repeat billing.
The idea sounds straightforward. Under the FTC Act, the agency can stop unfair or deceptive practices, including by issuing rules to clarify what’s allowed. But the click-to-cancel proposal raised immediate questions about whether the FTC was stretching its authority. This was the critique of many, including the American Consumer Institute (ACI), but ultimately the courts tossed the rule on procedural grounds.
That hasn’t slowed the FTC. In its antitrust complaint against Amazon, one of the headline charges was that consumers faced “dark patterns” when trying to cancel Prime. The agency has now brought similar allegations against LA Fitness, pointing to hurdles like requiring members to send letters or visit locations multiple times, or track down a single employee authorized to approve a cancellation.
Both cases rely on the same statutory foundation: the FTC Act and the Restore Online Shoppers’ Confidence Act (ROSCA), which regulates online “negative option” services where silence counts as consent to keep charging.
While Amazon ultimately settled its complaint, the reality remains that these two cancellation complaints lump two very different consumer experiences under the same laws. Amazon consistently ranks high in consumer satisfaction, and canceling Prime requires six clicks—annoying, maybe, but doable in a few minutes. Compare that with the alleged gauntlet at LA Fitness: mailed forms, in-person visits, and single-gatekeeper employees. Those are not the same level of harm.
The distinction matters. ACI has long argued for the Consumer Welfare Standard, which limits antitrust and regulatory enforcement to instances of actual consumer harm. Applying CWS here would separate technical inconvenience from clear deception.
Another issue is that ROSCA only applies to online commerce. That’s why it’s being used against Amazon, but the LA Fitness case stretches its logic. As Bloomberg Law recently noted, this leaves us with a regulatory oddity—online retail faces stricter cancellation rules than brick-and-mortar businesses. The outcome could be that the same consumer frustration, or even significantly more, different legal treatment.
Which brings us back to the real takeaway: click-to-cancel shows both the danger of inconsistent regulation and the need for consumer-centered antitrust analysis. Without the Consumer Welfare Standard, the FTC risks flattening meaningful differences between cases. By drawing arbitrary lines between e-commerce and “regular” commerce, regulators create a system where consumer protection depends less on the harm involved and more on whether the transaction happened through a screen.
Tirzah Duren is the President and CEO of the American Consumer Institute, a nonprofit education and research organization. For more information about the Institute, follow us on X @ConsumerPal.