The lede: In September 2025, Amazon paid $2.5 billion to settle FTC charges that Prime enrollment was a trap and cancellation was a maze — $1 billion in civil penalties, $1.5 billion in consumer refunds, with claims still being processed through July 27, 2026. That case was the FTC's proof-of-concept. Now the agency is trying to codify the rule industry-wide: after the Eighth Circuit vacated the original "click-to-cancel" rule on procedural grounds in mid-2025, the FTC reopened rulemaking with an Advance Notice of Proposed Rulemaking published in March 2026, seeking to revive the core mandate — clear disclosure, affirmative consent, one-click cancellation — for every subscription business in America. Money moves here because negative-option billing (charge first, let inertia keep the meter running) is the highest-margin mechanism in consumer tech. Amazon's Subscription Services line alone pulled in roughly $49.6 billion in FY2025, up about 12% year-over-year, almost entirely defended by how hard it is to leave.