Australia’s competition regulator is suing Microsoft, alleging the software giant deliberately misled 2.7 million customers about cheaper subscription options when it forced AI assistant Copilot into Microsoft 365 plans alongside price hikes.
Australian Competition and Consumer Commission Legal proceedings filed The company filed a lawsuit against Microsoft Australia and its US parent company on Sunday, accusing it of providing false information to subscribers about the option after integrating Copilot into its individual and family plans on October 31 last year.
According to the ACCC, Microsoft reportedly told auto-renewing subscribers they had two options: accept the Copilot integration at a higher price or cancel their subscriptions entirely.
regulator claim This was misleading. That’s because there is a third option, the Microsoft 365 Personal and Family “Classic” plan, which retains all the original features without Copilot at the previous low price.
The regulator said the only way for customers to find these alternatives was to go to the subscription section of their account, select “Cancel Subscription,” and proceed through the cancellation flow until they finally reached a page with Classic plan options.
“After a detailed investigation, we will allege in court that Microsoft intentionally omitted references to the Classic plan in its communications and concealed its existence until subscribers initiated cancellation processes in order to increase the number of consumers on the more expensive Copilot integrated plan,” ACCC Chair Gina Cass Gottlieb said in a statement.
Microsoft did not immediately respond. decryption Request for comments.
Crystal aOS CEO and founder Joni Pirovic said, “This type of behavior puts Microsoft at risk for its social contract with its users, regardless of the legal consequences.” decryption. “An interesting avenue the ACCC could pursue in discovery is to ask why Microsoft approved the rollout without disclosing the classic option.”
The ACCC said consumer complaints and online discussions on Reddit revealed hidden classic options, and that inputs to the Infocentre also played a key role in prompting the investigation.
The watchdog is seeking orders including penalties, injunctions, declarations, consumer redress and costs.
“Ideally, companies should prominently present all material options so that consumers can make informed choices without having to take hidden steps,” said Alex Chandra, partner at IGNOS Law Alliance. decryption.
“Simply making options technically available (e.g., embedded in account settings or cancellation flows) is usually not enough; companies need to educate users about their options,” he added.
Microsoft is also facing a class action lawsuit in the US this month, with 11 ChatGPT Plus subscribers claiming the company. OpenAI suffocation computing power supply Through an exclusive Azure contract in 2019, they are artificially inflating the price of ChatGPT while building a competing AI product.
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