Amazon.com reintroduced a clause in its user agreement that seeks to prevent shoppers from filing class-action lawsuits against the online retailer, inserting a legal buffer between itself and plaintiffs attorneys that it removed five years ago.
In an e-mail sent to customers on Aug 14, the company said a new “arbitration agreement and class-action waiver” will require shoppers to resolve disputes outside the courts but said they could still file small claims, cases that typically limit damages to a few thousand dollars.
“We continually update our conditions of use to better serve our customers,” an Amazon spokesperson said in an e-mailed statement.
“We determined that reinstating the arbitration clause will offer customers a fast, cost-effective way to resolve disputes while still giving them the option of going to small claims court.”
Amazon removed a similar clause from its user agreement in 2021 amid a barrage of legal privacy challenges related to its voice-activated Alexa devices.
The company has also battled class-action lawsuits over unsafe product claims and allegedly making it hard to cancel Prime memberships.
The user-agreement update is not necessarily binding in court. Plaintiffs attorneys could still seek class-action lawsuits against Amazon, and it would be up to a judge to determine if the user agreement prevents them from doing so. BLOOMBERG
