The US FTC

A $35 million Shutterstock settlement in May 2026 extended the FTC’s recurring campaign against subscription enrollment and cancellation practices.

Who they are

The US Federal Trade Commission appears in this coverage as a US consumer-protection and competition regulator focused on digital-platform conduct, subscription sales and cancellations, privacy, and major technology-market transactions. Its stories span direct lawsuits and settlements, rulemaking, investigations, and referrals to the Department of Justice.

The recent arc

Coverage reached its all-time quarterly high in 2023Q2 as the FTC moved against two of the largest tech platforms in the corpus: it sought to block Microsoft’s acquisition of Activision Blizzard and sued Amazon over alleged Prime enrollment and cancellation dark patterns. The agency remained involved in the Microsoft fight later that year, saying it would pursue its appeal and assess the company’s Ubisoft cloud-gaming arrangement.

The emphasis then broadened, with 2024 coverage combining competition scrutiny of Microsoft’s OpenAI investment and Amazon and Google’s Anthropic investments with consumer-protection actions. The final click-to-cancel rule, Avast’s $16.5 million privacy settlement, the TikTok and ByteDance COPPA referral to DOJ, and the later Uber One inquiry all reinforced subscriptions, data use, and online consumer choice as recurring themes. Recent stories carry that enforcement line into 2025-26: litigation with states against Live Nation and Ticketmaster over ticket bots, an amended Uber One complaint, and Shutterstock’s $35 million settlement over subscription disclosures and cancellation.

The tension

The coverage circles a central clash between the FTC’s effort to police market power and consumer manipulation in digital services and the business practices of major platforms and intermediaries. Microsoft, Amazon, Meta, TikTok, Uber, and Ticketmaster figure in distinct cases, while the Meta appeal highlights that the agency’s expansive competition theories can face judicial resistance even as its subscription and privacy cases continue.

Why it matters

If this trajectory continues, the FTC’s influence will increasingly be measured not only by merger challenges but by whether its rules and cases change the design of recurring-revenue products, data practices, and platform gatekeeping. The Shutterstock and Uber matters suggest cancellation flows remain an active enforcement test, while the outcome of the Meta appeal and the agency’s AI-investment scrutiny will help determine how far its competition agenda can extend.

Related: FTC · Amazon · Meta · Microsoft · Ticketmaster · The US FTC adopts its final “click-to-cancel” rule requiring businesse