WASHINGTON: Amazon agreed Thursday to pay $2.5 billion to settle allegations from a US regulator that it used deceptive practices to enroll consumers in Amazon Prime and made it difficult to cancel subscriptions.

The Federal Trade Commission's lawsuit, filed in federal court in Seattle, alleged that Amazon knowingly tricked consumers into signing up for the $139-per-year Prime service during checkouts.

The settlement represents one of the FTC's largest financial recoveries in a consumer protection case.

The case centers on two main allegations: that Amazon enrolled customers without clear consent through confusing checkout processes, and that it created a deliberately complex cancellation system internally nicknamed "Iliad" -- after Homer's epic about the long, arduous Trojan War.

The

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