Case file 33
$2 is not a subscription disclosure.
Australia’s Federal Court ordered JustAnswer to pay $10 million and provide refunds after consumers were signed up to monthly fees they had not expected from a $2 question-and-answer offer.
Everything gets worse. We keep receipts.
We investigate the choices that strip away value, lock you in, and treat you like the product. Evidence first. Excuses last.
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Read the investigation →Case file 29
The menu was a subscription screen in disguise.
Australia’s consumer regulator alleges HelloFresh and Youfoodz charged tens of thousands of customers after an online cancellation—or before customers understood they had subscribed at all.
Case file 30
If AI search uses the work, the link has to survive.
The UK’s competition regulator has required Google to give publishers ways to opt out of AI-search uses and to properly attribute publisher content in AI-generated results.
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View all articles →When shopping becomes a streak, the cart is not the only product.
The European Commission opened a Digital Services Act investigation into Shein’s addictive design, recommendation transparency and illegal-product controls. It is an investigation, not a finding.
A repair tool is not a dealer-only feature.
US environmental guidance says manufacturers cannot use emissions law as a reason to withhold repair tools or software from farm-equipment owners and independent repairers.
Microslop is what happens when the roadmap stops listening
Microsoft’s AI-everywhere strategy gave its own customers a new word for software decay. The nickname is crude. The product lesson is not.
Click to subscribe. Call, beg and wait to cancel.
America’s federal click-to-cancel rule was struck down days before taking effect. The dark pattern survived the reform designed to kill it.
You bought the printer. HP kept the keys.
Firmware locks and subscription cartridges turn an ordinary appliance into a permissioned service—with your urgent document held in the middle.
Enshittification is a business model, not a vibe
The word became famous because it names a repeatable transfer of value: from users, to business customers, to the platform itself.
Sony is taking the disc away. The price tag gets to stay.
From January 2028, new PlayStation games will be sold digitally only. Retail boxes may still exist—but as download codes, not copies you can lend, resell or preserve.
You bought the movie. Sony kept the licence.
PlayStation customers in the UK were told that 551 StudioCanal films would disappear from their libraries in September 2026 after licensing agreements expired.
Bambu sold a printer. The cloud kept the keys.
When Bambu Lab restricted direct third-party cloud access, owners discovered that a fast, polished printer can still be a platform with a gate around it.
GitHub put the code in public. Copilot put the questions in court.
GitHub publishes DMCA notices and says Copilot’s training on public repositories is lawful. Developers still have to ask who gets attribution when an assistant reproduces familiar code.
SQL Server got a Copilot button. Then came the troubleshooting guide.
Microsoft’s SSMS integration promises an assistant inside a serious database tool. The official docs also read like a map of the setup, authentication and context failures users have to debug first.
Shutterstock made the subscription easy to start—and hard to leave.
The FTC says Shutterstock charged consumers without informed consent and built a cancellation process that pushed people through support channels instead of a simple exit.
Netflix raised every plan. The catalogue did not get bigger overnight.
A 2026 price increase touched every Netflix tier, continuing a pattern in which streaming services move customers from growth pricing to extraction pricing.
Bose updated the headphones. Some of the useful bits went missing.
A 2026 firmware update for Bose QuietComfort Ultra 2 headphones added new audio features while removing or obscuring controls customers already relied on.
Amazon called the cancellation flow an Iliad. Customers called it a trap.
A $2.5 billion FTC settlement over Prime enrollment and cancellation practices turned a notorious dark pattern into a refund process.
The chatbot got an ad slot. The conversation got a business model.
As ChatGPT moved toward advertising in 2026, the promise of a neutral assistant collided with the oldest platform incentive: turn attention into inventory.
A game can be paid for, downloaded and still be designed to die.
California’s Protect Our Games Act would require publishers that shut down online games to offer a refund or a version that can keep running without the operator’s services.
The AI vendor lock-in arrives with a usage meter.
As enterprise AI vendors move from fixed plans to usage-based pricing, switching models can mean rewriting prompts, workflows and budgets at the same time.
Microsoft told 2.7 million Australians: take Copilot or leave.
The ACCC alleges Microsoft concealed a cheaper Classic option when it told Microsoft 365 subscribers that Copilot and a higher renewal price were the only way to continue.
Telstra raised the mobile bill again. The network stayed the same shape.
Most Telstra postpaid plans rose by $4 a month from May 2026, with prepaid plans rising by around $5 as the company pointed to network investment and support costs.
NBN raised the wholesale price. Your provider will explain the bill.
From July 2026, nbn wholesale prices rose by up to $2.34 a month on popular residential speed tiers, leaving retailers to decide how much reaches customers.
Adobe charged for leaving. The CMA wants to know why.
The UK Competition and Markets Authority opened an investigation into early termination fees on certain Adobe membership plans.
Virgin Media made cancellation a customer-service problem.
Ofcom fined Virgin Media £28 million over alleged failures that made it harder for customers to cancel broadband and phone contracts.
Virgin Media sells a movie you can lose in five years.
The UK Virgin Media Store terms say purchased content may only remain available for a maximum of five years because third-party rights can expire.
A countdown clock is not a price. It is pressure with a second hand.
The UK’s CMA says Emma Sleep admitted using misleading countdown timers, high-demand messages and discount claims. The settlement is a useful test for every checkout designed to hurry a decision.
A five-star rating is useless if someone holds the scale.
The CMA opened investigations into five businesses over allegedly misleading review practices—an overdue reminder that star ratings are part of the product, not a decorative afterthought.
Australia has finally put the dark pattern on the priority list.
The ACCC’s 2026–27 enforcement priorities explicitly call out subscription traps and other dark patterns in digital markets. Naming the tactic is the beginning, not the remedy.
The UK is trying to make a subscription’s exit door visible.
Proposed UK subscription measures would make renewals clearer and cancellation less punishing. The important work is turning the promise into the actual interface people use.
The Nest stayed on the wall. Its smart features left the house.
Google ended app and cloud support for first- and second-generation Nest Learning Thermostats, turning a connected appliance into a local-only device after purchase.
Futurehome put the smart in smart home behind an annual bill.
Futurehome’s support terms say that, without a subscription, customers lose app control, automations, modes and energy services for hardware already installed in their homes.
A fake message became a paid answer.
US regulators say NGL used messages that appeared to come from real people to steer users into paid subscriptions, then charged some users recurring weekly fees they did not expect.
Sitting with your child should not be a surprise fee.
The UK Competition and Markets Authority is investigating whether Ryanair’s family-seat charge and its presentation at checkout comply with consumer-protection law. It is an investigation, not a finding.
The ad-free stream became another monthly upgrade.
Australia’s consumer regulator alleges Amazon relied on unfair Prime contract terms to add advertising to Prime Video, then asked subscribers to pay extra to keep the service ad-free. The claims have not been decided by a court.
“No hidden fees” was an add-on.
The companies behind the Hopper travel apps agreed to pay US$35 million to settle US allegations that they pre-selected fees described as optional and misrepresented some travel-product benefits.
The ticket price arrived after the ticket search.
The UK Competition and Markets Authority ordered StubHub UK to refund more than 50,000 customers and imposed a fine after finding mandatory ticket fees appeared late in the checkout process.
The Game Pass price fell. The launch-day promise moved away.
Xbox says future Call of Duty releases will arrive in Game Pass Ultimate and PC Game Pass about a year after launch, rather than on release day, even as it reduces the monthly price of those plans in some regions.
The subscription renews. The older console library slows down.
PlayStation says PS4 games will be added only intermittently to PlayStation Plus monthly selections and Game Catalog updates from January 2026, while Plus remains a recurring subscription.
The operating system knows enough to sell you more operating system.
Microsoft documents that Windows collects required diagnostic data and that, when personalised offers are enabled, it can use diagnostic data to show tips, ads and recommendations—including suggestions for OneDrive or more storage.
A one-time project should not renew itself.
Shutterstock agreed to pay US$35 million to settle US allegations that it obscured renewal and cancellation terms, charged some consumers without informed consent, and made early cancellation difficult.
Infinite scroll is a design decision, not the weather.
The European Commission has preliminarily found Meta’s design of Instagram and Facebook to be in breach of the Digital Services Act, focusing on infinite scroll, autoplay, notifications and highly personalised recommendations.
When the server goes away, the game needs an answer.
The European Commission will engage with consumers and game publishers after the Stop Destroying Videogames initiative, while saying it cannot currently require publishers to keep games playable after commercial support ends.
Prime made joining easy. Leaving became a case file.
The US Federal Trade Commission says Amazon’s US$2.5 billion Prime settlement includes refunds for eligible customers affected by challenged enrolment and cancellation flows.
“Cancel anytime” needs to survive the cancellation screen.
The US FTC is pursuing Uber over allegations that its Uber One membership charged people without consent, overstated savings and made cancellation difficult despite “cancel anytime” claims.
The default is where the bundle starts to feel inevitable.
The UK Competition and Markets Authority is investigating whether Microsoft’s business-software ecosystem has strategic market status, including whether bundling, defaults and interoperability limit customer choice.
The platform fee starts with who gets to name the price.
The UK Competition and Markets Authority is consulting on requirements that would let app developers tell customers about payment options outside Apple and Google’s platforms.
The bill for leaving the cloud is part of the lock-in.
The UK Competition and Markets Authority identified data-egress fees and interoperability barriers that make cloud switching and multi-cloud use harder, prompting commitments from Amazon and Microsoft.