Project 'Iliad:' Amazon Deployed Sneaky Tactics to Make It Harder to Cancel Prime Membership

A recent report reveals that Amazon intentionally made it harder for users to cancel their Prime membership, resulting in a drop in cancellations of 14 percent in 2017. Amazon’s project “Iliad” may be a perfect example of “Dark UX,” web design tricks that purposefully confuse or mislead customers.

Business Insider reports that according to internal documents obtained by the outlet, Amazon purposefully drew out the process of canceling a Prime membership under a project named “Iliad.” The project developed multiple layers of questions and new offers that were offered to Prime members that attempted to cancel their membership, reducing Amazon’s member churn considerably.

An employee carries a package at the distribution center of US online retail giant Amazon in Moenchengladbach, on December 17, 2019. (INA FASSBENDER/AFP via Getty Images)

Jeff Bezos at Blue Origin press event ( Joe Raedle /Getty)

After the project launched, the number of Prime cancellations dropped by 14 percent in 2017 as fewer members managed to get to the final cancelation page. These types of UX designs are referred to as “Dark UX.” The Creative Momentum describes Dark UX as “any unethical web design trick designed to confuse and deceive users. It forces visitors to take actions against their wishes to benefit the business. This may mean asking for more information than is relevant to a transaction, eliminating important navigation elements to reduce site abandonment, or opting users into receive promotions by default.”

Multiple complaints have been filed with the FTC in recent years demanding an investigation into Amazon Prime’s cancelation process and its use of “dark patterns.” The Norwegian Consumer Council alleged in January 2021: “Throughout the process, Amazon manipulates users through wording and graphic design, making the process needlessly difficult and frustrating to understand.”

An Amazon spokesperson told Business Insider that the cancelation process for Prime is “simple and transparent and clearly present customers with choices and the implications of those choices.”

Jamil Ghani, VP of Amazon Prime, said in a statement: “Customer transparency and trust are top priorities for us. By design we make it clear and simple for customers to both sign up for or cancel their Prime membership. We continually listen to customer feedback and look for ways to improve the customer experience.”