This is the resolution of a years-old FTC case against Amazon, which included an internal program called "Project Iliad" to lower cancellation rates by increasing the number of steps involved, among other things. The cancellation process has changed between the initial filing and now.
It was nowhere near as bad as the giant gym chains or any other number of businesses.
I can think of a lot of membership and subscription services that have been far harder to cancel that I wish the FTC would do something about. A few extra clicks to cancel Prime is nothing in comparison to the gauntlet required to cancel some gym memberships. I remember a story where someone forgot to cancel their gym membership before moving across the country but the gym's policy required that you cancel in-person at the gym. They had to pay the monthly fee until their next trip back home, then lose an hour traveling to the gym to fill out the cancellation paperwork.
They did that. The FTC had a simple click-to-cancel rule that was supposed to start enforcement this year. It was struck down on procedural grounds during appeal in July.
I don't know anything about the Iliad. I asked generative AI how the name fit in, or why it was appropriate for the project. Adding the response below, in case it helps others.
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The name “Project Iliad” is almost certainly a reference to Homer’s Iliad, the ancient Greek epic poem about the Trojan War.
The connection works as a kind of corporate in-joke or metaphor:
The Iliad is long, complex, and arduous — much like the cancellation process Amazon designed. By naming the project after an epic full of prolonged struggle, the team was signaling (perhaps ironically) that customers would have to endure an "epic battle" just to cancel.
Conflict and attrition are central to the Iliad’s story. The war drags on, wearing down opponents. In Amazon’s context, Project Iliad’s design was to wear down users’ will to cancel through friction.
Wait.. you mean "Today, the Trump-Vance FTC..." is an exaggeration? Personally I never knew that we were supposed to prefix administration names infront of agencies but guess I'm a dope.
