Amazon has reached a historic USD 2.5 billion settlement with the Federal Trade Commission, which said the online retail giant tricked customers into signing up for its Prime memberships and made it difficult for them to cancel after doing so.

The Seattle company will pay USD 1 billion in civil penalties — the largest FTC fine in FTC’s history, and USD 1.5 billion will be paid to consumers who were unintentionally enrolled in Prime, or were deterred from cancelling their subscriptions, the agency said Thursday. The trial in Seattle started this week after the case was filed two years ago. Amazon admits no wrong-doing in the settlement. It did not immediately respond to requests by The Associated Press for comment.

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