The US DOJ sues Adobe for allegedly harming “consumers by enrolling them in its default, most lucrative subscription plan without clearly disclosing” plan terms
Amid a flurry of tech news yesterday … Kevin Okemwa / Windows Central : US government sues Adobe for ‘deceptive’ business tactics and hiding steep subscription cancellation charges to ‘trap’ its customers Rob Thubron / TechSpot : US government sues Adobe over hidden subscription termination fees and difficult cancellation process Aisha Malik / TechCrunch : US sues Adobe for hiding termination fees and making it difficult to cancel subscriptions Anthony Duignan-Cabrera / Silicon Valley Business … : FTC sues Adobe over termination fees Paul Lilly / HotHardware : FTC Lawsuit Accuses Adobe Of Trapping Customers And Hiding Fees Adrianna Nine / ExtremeTech : FTC Sues Adobe For Hiding Cancellation Fees and Confusing Customers Jeremy Gray / PetaPixel : Justice Department Sues Adobe for Hidden Fees and Difficult Cancellations David McCabe / New York Times : U.S. Sues Adobe Over Hard-to-Cancel Subscriptions Rich Stanton / PC Gamer : Fetch the popcorn: US government sues Adobe, says it's ‘trapped’ consumers with a subs model that's ‘absurdly hard to cancel’ and ‘ambushed’ them with late fees US Department of Justice : United States Files Complaint Against Adobe and Two Adobe Executives for Alleged Violations of Restore Online Shoppers' Confidence Act Matthew Wilson / KitGuru : The FTC is suing Adobe over ‘hidden fees’ and subscriptions Steve Ranger / ITPro : Adobe faces lawsuit over “complex and challenging cancellation process” for customers Abid Ahsan Shanto / Gizchina : FTC Takes on Adobe: The Legal Battle Over Subscription Fees Leo Grieco / Proactive : Adobe sued by US over hidden cancellation fees Jak Connor / TweakTown : US government sues Adobe for deceiving and trapping people with subscriptions Edgar Cervantes / Android Authority : The US sues Adobe for its subscription practices: Is Adobe trying to swindle us? Oliver Haslam / iMore : The FTC sues Adobe, accusing the creative software maker of locking customers into pricey subscriptions and hiding associated fees Nick Heer / Pixel Envy : U.S. Federal Trade Commission Sues Adobe Over Subscription Practices Bloomberg : Adobe Sued by US Regulators Over Subscription Cancellations Juli Clover / MacRumors : U.S. Government Sues Adobe for Hidden Termination Fees When Canceling Subscription Natalie Sherman / BBC : Software giant Adobe accused of ‘trapping customers’ Ethan Baron / Mercury News : Adobe ‘trapped customers’ with hard-to-cancel subscriptions and hidden fee, feds allege Maria Deutscher / SiliconANGLE : Justice Department sues Adobe over its subscription cancellation policies Stefanie Schappert / Cybernews.com : US gov sues Adobe for hiding fees, preventing easy cancellation Todd Spangler / Variety : Adobe Sued by U.S. Government for Allegedly Making Canceling Online Subscriptions ‘an Obstacle Course’ PYMNTS.com : FTC Alleges Adobe Deters Subscription Cancellations, Hides Early Termination Fee Ed Targett / The Stack : “Manipulative” Adobe sued by US consumer watchdog over exit fees Taylor Lyles / IGN : U.S. Government Sues Adobe Over Hidden Fees, Difficulty in Canceling Subscriptions Kimberly Gedeon / Mashable : Adobe sued by U.S. for allegedly ‘trapping’ users in Photoshop subscriptions Michael Tsai / mjtsai.com : U.S. Sues Adobe Over Subscriptions Thomas Claburn / The Register : Feds sue Adobe and execs for stinging subscribers with ‘hidden’ cancellation fees Nick Robertson / KRQE-TV : Adobe ‘trapped customers’ in hard-to-cancel subscriptions, FTC says in lawsuit Miranda Neubauer / Quartz : Adobe faces a federal lawsuit over ‘deceiving’ subscriptions Maxwell Zeff / Gizmodo : Feds Sue Adobe for ‘Trapping’ Customers in Long, Expensive Subscriptions Shivani Kumaresan / Benzinga : Why Adobe's Shares Are Trading Lower Monday Markus Kasanmascheff / WinBuzzer : DOJ Sues Adobe Over Misleading Subscription Practices John Callaham / Neowin : The US FTC files a lawsuit against Adobe for its alleged deceptive subscription plans Michael Kan / PCMag : FTC Sues Adobe For Using Early Termination Fees To ‘Trap’ Users Pranav Dixit / Engadget : The US has sued Adobe over early termination fees and making subscriptions hard to cancel Ryan Christoffel / 9to5Mac : US DOJ sues Adobe for ‘trapping’ users in subscriptions Mark Hachman / PCWorld : DOJ sues Adobe for hiding fees when you try to cancel a subscription Threads: Dare Obasanjo / @carnage4life : The wheels of justice should grind Adobe to dust for their horrendous pricing practices. Mastodon: @mysk@mastodon.social : And renewable subscriptions shouldn't auto renew by default, even if canceling them manually is very easy. — Apple's App Store and Google Play use this trick to increase their chances of getting a 15-30% cut when users forget to cancel their subscriptions. — US sues Adobe for ‘deceiving’ subscriptions that are too hard to cancel … Joel Housman / @joelhousman@mastodon.social : @Techmeme Good. Throw the book at them. Long time coming. Why didn't you do this 10 years ago? X: Lina Khan / @linakhanftc : 1. @FTC has taken action against Adobe and two executives for pushing people into subscriptions and then making it absurdly hard to cancel. Adobe ambushed users with hefty “early termination fees” and threw up obstacles when people tried to cancel. https://www.ftc.gov/... @ftc : FTC takes action against Adobe and executives for hiding fees, preventing consumers from easily cancelling software subscriptions: https://www.ftc.gov/... /1 @usao_ndca : Today, joined by our partners at @FTC and @DOJCivil, we filed a civil suit against Adobe and two of its executives in San Jose federal court to prevent them from continuing to mislead consumers with respect to their software subscriptions. Lawsuit: https://www.justice.gov/... Avi Asher-Schapiro / @aaschapiro : An interesting trend at the FTC, going after individual executives responsible for overseeing dark pattern. I'd sure love to know what's behind that redaction: https://www.ftc.gov/... [image] Rob Freund / @robertfreundlaw : Just when you trusted Adobe (lol), the DOJ and FTC sued Adobe today for “using hidden fees to trap people into paying for subscription plans” and imposed “numerous cancellation hurdles.” [image] Gergely Orosz / @gergelyorosz : Adobe keeps doing a tweaked version of this, by the way. They do not make it clear that “annual, paid monthly” means if you want to cancel, you need to pay 50% of your remaining annual commitment and lose access *immediately. Gergely Orosz / @gergelyorosz : Finally! The FTC is suing Adobe - specifically, its executives - for dark practices that should be illegal. The company tricked me into subscribing to exactly this in 2020 which I had no idea would mean when cancelling, Adobe demands ~$300 and lose access *immediately!* [image] Jan Schakowsky / @janschakowsky : The @FTC, under @linakhanFTC, is not afraid to stand up for consumers! Today, they sued Adobe for deceiving consumers into paying hundreds of dollars in early termination fees. Yet another example of the Biden Administration protecting your wallet. Sam Bowman / @s8mb : I don't know about this case, but one area where I generally favour strong consumer protection is in unexpected awkward or costly cancellation policies and fees. They create a tragedy of the commons, because you come to fear them from even well-behaved companies. @dougrathbone : As someone who's experienced this it's totally worthy of an FTC fine. Adobe attempted to charge me $347 for cancelling an Acrobat trial that went over by a day. The alternate? keep subscribed at $6.99/mo. Took a formal Australian Fair Trading Act complaint before they gave @moreperfectus : BREAKING: The U.S. government is suing Adobe. It's accusing the company of harming consumers by enrolling them in the most expensive subscription plans without clearly disclosing the huge early termination fees — fees that can reach hundreds of dollars. Ameer / @synthpotato : @MorePerfectUS charging a cancellation fee for a DIGITAL service is literally extortion Mike Swift / @swiftstories : Looks like @Adobe is following in the steps of @amazon in the @FTC bringing #darkpatterns allegations against company executives as well as the company. https://www.ftc.gov/... @mysk_co : And renewable subscriptions shouldn't auto renew by default, even if canceling them manually is very easy. Apple's App Store and Google Play use this trick to increase their chances of getting a 15-30% cut when users forget to cancel their subscriptions. [image] @drea_got_banned : @MorePerfectUS Everyone in the design field has been scammed by Adobe at some point... and it's usually college students or people just starting out trying to freelance 😒 I welcome their downfall!! Rohit Chopra / @chopracfpb : The @FTC is right to take action against @Adobe for deceiving consumers about subscription cancellation fees and making it unreasonably difficult to cancel. Importantly, the lawsuit also names individual executives who allegedly directed the scheme. https://www.ftc.gov/... Matt Stoller / @matthewstoller : Chair Lina Khan is going after Adobe for making it annoying to cancel and charging hidden junk fees. Adobe is one of those endless economic termites in our economy. LinkedIn: Peter Evans : This was bound to happen. While I love and use much of their Creative Suite/Cloud products, on the “deceptiveness scale” I rank Adobe somewhere between Ticketmaster and Ty Lopez. … Forums: Hacker News : FTC sues Adobe for hiding fees and inhibiting cancellations r/technews : US sues Adobe for ‘deceiving’ subscriptions that are too hard to cancel | The Justice Department alleges that Adobe hid early cancellation fees and trapped consumers in pricey subscriptions. r/Anticonsumption : US sues Adobe for ‘deceiving’ subscriptions that are too hard to cancel / The Justice Department alleges that Adobe hid early cancellation fees and trapped consumers in pricey subscriptions r/it : US sues Adobe for “deceiving” subscriptions that are too hard to cancel r/austrian_economics : I think this is something Austrian Schoolers can get behind. The US Government is suing Adobe. r/UXDesign : US Department of Justice sues Adobe for “deceiving” subscriptions that are too hard to cancel r/LinusTechTips : US sues Adobe for “deceiving” subscriptions that are too hard to cancel r/technology : FTC Takes Action Against Adobe and Executives for Hiding Fees, Preventing Consumers from Easily Cancelling Software Subscriptions r/Affinity : US sues Adobe for “deceiving” subscriptions that are too hard to cancel r/photoshop : US sues Adobe for ‘deceiving’ subscriptions that are too hard to cancel r/Piracy : US sues Adobe for ‘deceiving’ subscriptions that are too hard to cancel r/graphic_design : US sues Adobe for ‘deceiving’ subscriptions that are too hard to cancel Alyaza To / Beehaw : US sues Adobe for “deceiving” subscriptions that are too hard to cancel
Context & Ripple Effects
The case follows Adobe’s disclosure that the FTC was examining its cancellation policies and could seek significant penalties, turning a regulatory inquiry into a formal federal challenge to the company’s subscription design. The later resolution of the government case underscores that cancellation terms became a material legal and customer-remediation issue for Adobe.
The allegations focus on the mechanics around a default plan: disclosure at enrollment, early-exit charges, and the path to cancel. They therefore test whether subscription retention practices can be treated as deceptive commerce rather than merely aggressive pricing.
First-order effects
- Adobe and the named executives must defend allegations that plan terms and cancellation flows violated federal online-shopping law, placing its subscription enrollment and exit experience under immediate scrutiny.
- Customers affected by the alleged practices gain a government-backed challenge to undisclosed termination costs and difficult cancellation steps.
Second-order effects
- Other subscription software providers face stronger incentives to review default-plan disclosures, early-termination charges, and cancellation journeys, particularly after Adobe’s earlier disclosed FTC cancellation-policy inquiry.
- Legal and compliance teams may gain greater influence over product checkout and retention design, because interface choices can determine regulatory exposure rather than simply conversion performance.
Third-order effects
- If enforcement continues, subscription businesses will have less room to rely on friction and opaque terms to preserve recurring revenue; retention will need to rest more on product value and transparent commitments.
- The case fits a broader move toward enforceable cancellation parity, later embodied in the FTC’s click-to-cancel rule, though the eventual practical standard will depend on enforcement and court outcomes.
The trend: Subscription regulation is shifting from policing individual fees toward scrutinizing the full enrollment-to-cancellation customer journey as a consumer-protection issue.